Thursday 20 August 2009

Big or small levels?

Big levels or smaller levels? is a question that has come up in the long-running Exploitation and Evasion thread over on r.g.r.d.

So...should Kharne keep its current (IMHO) big levels or move to smaller levels?

(if it helps the discussion, I intend for the shortest path through the dungeon to be forty levels, split over four dungeon branches, and for the maximum character experience level to be XL20).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Depends. What is big?

Dave said...

Let's assume a big level is one of Kharne's current level. Or an Angband level.

Kharne's TDungeonLevel class contains an array that is 400x400 in size. Of this, dungeon levels can use the space from 40 to 360 (in both dimensions) so they are effectively 320x320 in possible extent.

Anonymous said...

Hm, really, this is big. I have made the experience that smaller levels tend to be more interesting with less repetition; but it depends on the variation of content of your game and how you deploy this content in your levels. If you have lots and lots of content, you can assign it to several areas in one level. If you have only a few monsters and items, you should keep your levels smaller.

x said...

I like big levels because they offer more to explore. But too big and it just becomes a nightmare to navigate. Unless the level has a lot of passages that easily go from one side to the other..