Map Making

Let’s go exploring!

Infinite Level game discussed: The Future Project

Have you ever wondered about the thought process that goes into making a metroidvania map? Why did the designers choose to link these two areas? How did the new abilities decide the layout? Were you supposed to get that item so early/late? These are questions I had to start asking myself when work began on The Future Project. The fact is, like with all games, there is no “one size fits all” solution. How one approaches their metroidvania maps is heavily dependent on the game they're making. I'm making a first person metroidvania with each of its major areas sectioned off into their own maps, as opposed to linking every single room together. Naturally, this means how I create my maps are going to be very different from how, for instance, the Ori games make theirs. However, that's not to say that they can't share similar ideas. They both reside in the same genre after all, so some basic principles will apply to most games of that genre.

What are those basic principles? The way I see it, the most important principle is interconnectivity. Think of any metroidvania game you've played, and you'll recall that the map loops back around to certain key areas multiple times. Sometimes, there's multiple ways back to that key area, as is the case with Hollow Knight. Regardless of how many or few ways back to key areas there are, it's important you get to that place at some point with the new equipment you've acquired along the way. The purpose of doing this ties directly with the next major principle, the feeling of growing strength. When you start a new game in Super Metroid, you have one hundred health, no missiles, and a somewhat dinky projectile to fire at enemies. That's not a lot to work with, and the areas you can explore are limited as a result. But eventually, after defeating some bosses and finding new upgrades, you'll take a path that happens to lead you to the place where the game began, but the context is completely different. You have more health and missiles, the Morph Ball to enter tight spaces, as well as a suit upgrade, Grapple Beam, and more. The number of options you have are greatly increased. And those early game areas that gave you trouble? They're probably a cakewalk now. Moments like these are important in a game like these, and gives the player a feeling of satisfaction as they look back on their accomplishments up to this point. And if they want, they can take time to enjoy the free reign over this old area thanks to their upgrades.

Let's now look at The Future Project and how its maps are put together. In the gameplay video, the player starts with the absolute basics. The environment around them has been designed with those absolute basics in mind. So, the map must be kept simple and relatively straightforward, with only a few alternative paths to go down, and even those alternatives must be at least partially accepting of the player's basic moveset. But by the end of their time in this starting area, they'll have acquired missiles and the Strafe ability, greatly increasing their options. The missiles open up two whole areas, while Strafe lets them more easily handle the obstacles that come their way. In addition, Distant Sibling opens up just enough to allow some additional exploration of the area before the player must go to one of the other two areas to progress. Of course, the player will eventually be brought back around to the start of Distant Sibling, which should hopefully give some kind of “aha” feeling as they realize how the world is linked.

Now we consider what the new areas should take into account when creating maps for them. Let's use Jeweled Tundra as an example. So, we already know that this icy world knows you'll have the missiles and Strafe. In particular, we want to draw attention to the missiles here. So, what I opted to do was have more walls that are destroyed with missiles here. The map will be peppered with barriers like these as an assurance that you have this upgrade. Additionally, the enemies here can perform attacks that take into consideration the Strafe ability, including a polar bear-like creature covered in ice called the Ice Clad. This will shoot fast moving, long range icicles at you that will be much easier to avoid when you strafe. These encounters are typically associated with long hallways to further force the need to use the Strafe ability. Overall, the encounters are now designed with an entirely new movement option available to you, and the map itself is now encouraging more exploration by giving more alternate paths to explore.

The Distant Sibling map. Well, part of it…

One thing the game should be doing at this point is dropping little teasers and barricades that make the player wonder what ability will be required to proceed. Even the opening minutes of Distant Sibling has a few barriers like this, as indicated by a red crack on some rocks. Jeweled Tundra has the same red crack, and that's before we get into situations where there's large gaps that cannot be cleared or other insurmountable obstacles. This will certainly add another layer to the design of the different maps. What all will and will not be shown to the player at this point in the game? I don't believe it's a good idea to overwhelm the player with teasers of all the different abilities they can get. Instead, I opt to give it to them in chunks. So, in the two maps I'm using as examples, we're teasing the availability of at least two more abilities. A little before those respective abilities are accessed, we can start teasing some other abilities, and continue this cycle until the game's conclusion. The ultimate goal is to constantly feed the player new ideas on what's possible throughout the game until they finally reach that point where the whole world is open for exploring.

But you don't want to constantly tease the player with no payoff. Not every path needs to be the critical path to take, but there should definitely come points where the player sees an area they can't get to yet and ask themselves if it will be important. When they return to that place, their curiosity should be rewarded with an expanding world. Remember that red crack on the rock in Distant Sibling I mentioned earlier? This is actually going to be an integral path to take to acquire an important mid-game ability. One late game area has a door that cannot be opened without some kind of power given to it, further expanding the world in that way. Whenever a new ability is discovered, the player should be able to think of a place earlier in the game that they think will utilize this ability. Even within the gameplay video, this is demonstrated in the opening minutes. An indestructible, root-like object keeping you out of the room ahead? Find the Strafe ability and strafe around it. Even if the path chosen isn't necessarily the critical path, taking the time to explore the area with your newfound power should grant some kind of reward, typically an upgrade to health or ammo. Notice also that with each of these scenarios, the way the player thinks of the world around them should change. The ability to open certain doors and paths should cause the player to rethink previous parts of the game and consider what may be hiding in those currently unexplored places. Players should always have at least one idea of where to take something they've acquired, but I personally aim to give most players two to three ideas on where to utilize their newfound power. By setting up the maps this way, players will get that feeling of uncovering new land on their own, without feeling like they're being guided by me.

One part of the map design that's somewhat unique to The Future Project is the option to tackle areas in your desired order. The game starts off linearly enough, with only the tutorial and Distant Sibling areas available to you. But not long after gaining missiles, you suddenly have two whole worlds you can explore. And which one you do first is entirely up to you. This of course means that both maps should be designed to accommodate the player's moveset up to that point. At this point, the map design gets interesting because you have to make them simple enough that a player with just the basics, missiles, and Strafe upgrades can progress but still make the areas distinct. Uniqueness does not come exclusively from different visuals. The very geometry of the land should feel different from one area to the next, and should have its own unique challenges to solve. In this case, one area has more of an emphasis on platforming while another has overall tougher enemies. Gaining the primary ability of one area will directly influence how you approach the next as well, meaning the maps now have to also be designed to accommodate a potential “extra” ability. You can probably see why this would start to get complicated.

The pattern, then, goes something like this: the player enters a new area. That area is initially designed around the abilities that the player will have, as well as the possibility of an extra ability depending on the exact path the player has taken. As the player progresses through the area, they'll acquire new abilities that gradually open up their immediate surroundings, and will eventually be used again in previous worlds. At some point though, they'll be going into an entirely new area, where the cycle will repeat, but with the added step that the last world we were just in as well as all worlds before will now have to take the newest abilities into consideration. The layers just keep piling on! It should come as no surprise that the maps are often revisited and adjusted in order to keep that cycle going. For instance, the current version of the Distant Sibling map is version three, and the way things are going I fully expect there to be a fourth version soon. Late game areas are, in my opinion, easier to design because the player is expected to have almost all of the game's abilities by that point, so you can design around that with fewer revisions. At least, that's the theory. I could end up eating those words.

A part of the Jeweled Tundra map. The character/number combinations are how I keep track of rooms internally.

Hopefully you enjoyed this peek into the thought process of The Future Project's map design. And this is just one area that has to be carefully considered throughout the development of the game. We haven't even touched on the ways abilities can link together outside of exploration, how enemies are designed and created, or what testing a game like this entails. All of those will make for interesting topics in the future, but for now we've kept the focus squarely on maps and the kinds of considerations you have to make for them in a game like this. This arguably the most important part of The Future Project anyway, so it's worth dedicating a whole dev blog post to. It might even be worth going into each individual world in depth one day. But that's an “after release” type of discussion.

Until next time!

-Lance T.