Posting this on both forums to study the difference in the discussion formed. It's an anthropological study!
Anyway, someone mentioned randomly generating dungeons for ZC in chat and I wanted to discuss the possible considerations that would need to be taken to make something like that work. This thread isn't so much about scripting as it is about identifying the hurdles to such a project.
Here are the tasks I identified that would need to be handled to make the idea work, as well as basic ideas on how to handle them.
- Dungeon flow: Ensuring that Link can exit any room that he enters
My idea (Completely Random Dungeon)
Each time you enter a room, a script identifies which door Link used to enter the room (by checking the difference in screen position) and assigns that door to a one-way shutter. It then randomly selects one of the three remaining doors and assigns it to a random door type. THEN, it selects one of the two remaining doors and assigns THAT to a random door type. Finally, it checks if any of the doors are open, shutters, or walk-through walls. If there are none, the final door is set to 'shutter'.
@Goriya 's idea (New rooms are randomized)
Each room has all four side warps set, and the warp type set to random. When an exit is selected, the random quality is removed and that direction is permanently assigned to that warp. Thus, each room has four possible 'next room' variations, and once the next room is defined it is locked (allowing backtracking as well as tool gates).
In both cases, traditional door layouts would be required to prevent walkability errors.
- Random Floor plans (with puzzles): Making each room visibly distinct
My idea (Completely Random Dungeon)
Every time a room is entered, a screen (with floors but no walls) would be randomly selected from a reference map and assigned as the first layer of the screen just entered. With a sufficiently large map this creates the possibility of a significantly different experience every time the quest is played, but it also creates the possibility of encountering a puzzle that cannot be solved (because someone pushed the wrong block or burned the wrong bush) or the possibility of repeatedly encountering the same puzzle. Some sort of system would have to be installed to 'reset' the room without leaving the room, so that the puzzle is not lost when a player missteps.
@Goriya 's idea (New rooms are randomized)
Extending the concept that a new room is assigned from pre-generated means, Goriya's model could simply have rooms that are designed as puzzles without much difficulty.
- Random Enemy Selection: Making difficulty visibly distinct
My idea (Completely Random Dungeon
Like selecting the floor layout, I would set up a map with enemy sets that randomly applies a collection of enemies to the room as it is encountered. This could result in quite amusing difficulty spiikes if the enemy set is not randomized (or if perma-jinx bubbles are utilized)
@Goriya 's idea
Enemies would be built into the rooms that Link warps to from the side-warp randomization. This has an unfortunate side-effect, predictability. Every time a particular room type is encountered, you will know exactly which enemies to expect.
- Random Item Acquisition: Giving Link his tools
One possibility
It is perfectly reasonable that tools might be restricted to the overworld. In such cases, you could set up a barrier before each dungeon that requires a particular tool, and then random floor plans COULD require the tool to advance in a particular direction (though that's a little boring, I suppose, because you would never encounter barriers that you wouldn't be able to cross).
A secondary option
Each room has a randomized chance to drop an item when all enemies are defeated. Since the chance is randomized, the item is as well. To avoid getting the player permanently stuck when encountering a barrier that cannot be crossed, the game would start with an 'Egress amulet' that takes players out of the dungeon when used (Farore's wind).
@Goriya 's model
Since Goriya's rooms are created with intention, they can house items intentionally which would supply the player with needed equipment more reliably (there's little chance the rooms will be built with amulets when the dungeon is full of visible enemies, whereas a totally random system might drop such things repeatedly). It does reintroduce the matter of predictability, though; when a particular floor plan is called players will know which item to expect.
Anyway, that's my randomness for the day! What are your thoughts on this... thought exercise?
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