Topic: Theoretical: Randomized traditional Castlevania?

[squaretex]

First, the TL;DR:
Side-scrolling Castlevania, roguelike random room placement. Good idea, or bad?

And now...the treatise.


Maria: It's strange. This castle is different then I remember it.
Alucard: This castle is a creature of chaos. It may take many incarnations.
Maria: I can't trust my memories huh? Oh well, I'll do my best.

This conversation highlighted the differences between Rondo of Blood and its direct sequel,  Symphony of the Night. If one were to play them back to back, there would be areas like the clock tower that strike that similar-but-different vibe. But of course, this is a comparison of two different games, and each game's own design remains static.

But suppose the design WASN'T static? Suppose, as a "creature of chaos", the game layout changed each time you played?

That has been the major design of the "roguelike" games. The plots are generally simple: descend into a dungeon, kill the bad guy, come back. But to make it interesting, each visit to the dungeon is randomized, using templates of rooms and connecting halls. So while the feel of the game remains the same, the ever-changing layout keeps the players off-guard. And thus, even in ascii or low-res graphics, these games remain highly popular. In fact, there IS a top-down Castlevania roguelike out there!

However, that's top-down. Can such a feel be caught in the traditional SIDE-SCROLLING Castlevania style?

Consider, for example, a Marble Gallery. First time you play the game, it flows from left to right in a generally straight line. The SECOND time, however, it goes from right to left...mostly. Seems that there's quite a lot more vertically-oriented rooms this time,  which kinda throws things off a bit. Or how about, in true RL fashion, it puts you in the "MIDDLE" of the level, and now you have to decide which way to go!

(And if this game has editor tools, like what the Diablo-inspired Torchlight has done for its fans, imagine what crazy fan-designed templates can spice up the mix!)

So there you have it. Now, there are two questions:
1. Could such a thing be done relatively easily, or is it a nightmare in the making?
2. If it COULD be done, would anyone want to PLAY it?

p.s. I even have a name in mind:
Castlevania: Scherzo of Chaos


p.p.s. However, since I can't code my way out of a paper bag, I'd have to leave this idea to someone who wouldn't make it suck.

[VladCT]

1. I know jack squat about coding, but I'd assume the latter.
2. ALL OF MY FREAKING YES
Also, doesn't this belong in the Fan Stuff section, even if it's just an idea?

[squaretex]

Also, doesn't this belong in the Fan Stuff section, even if it's just an idea?

Being a bare-bones concept with nothing else to show, I wasn't sure where it would fit.

That, and there's a cap on Fan Stuff postings, and I know better than to spam my three posts just to get an idea out.

[uzo]

While technically possible, there are a few inherint issues with this concept.

One is the imagery and theming of areas would be shattered in a sense. The levels are constructed in a specific manner for a specific reason. You lose this. Visually it would become a complete disorientated experience as well. The Castle like structure, the aesthetics of it all, would be lost to a random generation. The best way they could do it, is have randomized segments, not room by room. Each segment would be hand crafted, and they'd link to each other segment at specified required rooms, like the loading rooms.

I don't personally like most random generated dungeon crawlers. Why? It takes the 'art' out of the design. Its now a cold machine of meaningless configurations. When you have an intentionally designed level, you can feel it. Things in the level have true purpose and have a soul to them, being hand crafted.

The randomized areas/segments concept I mentioned earlier also is not used often because its basically level designing the game 5 times over. Most developers find it unnecessary and far too time consuming to be an implemented feature.

[squaretex]

I understand your view there, uzo. It's quite a dissension between the two camps...

Non-RL: Don't you see? The craftsmanship, the style, the SOUL...!
RL: ...which you can play blindfolded after 50 playthroughs. *YAWN*
Non-RL: That's not the point!!!
RL: Look, if I'm going to invest some time in this, I'd like to be surprised every time I open a door!
Non-RL: Alright, then...YOU come up with five different variations.
RL: Well...um...

I concede that this style of CV game might indeed have a limited audience.

[X]

Couldn't you still have a form of randomization in a CV game? It could work like this; You have a fixed number of stages in the game. However every time you play a new game the stages change. They still use their assigned tiles & sprites however they are re-arranged to give the player a new challenge every time. ...I can't help but feel we've talked about this concept before on the forums.

[squaretex]

It's questions like these that point out uzo's complexity concerns. For example, would a "room chunk" be tile-independent, so that a design could show up in both an Underground Cavern or a Dance Hall (with appropriate tiles appearing)? Or should there be specific exclusive chunks for the Clock Tower, Throne Room, etc?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I think there should be areas, and the areas would have some interconnections that are static.  That is, they are the same in every playthrough, probably the location of the exit to the next areas, and the boss room.

However, everything in between would be differently arranged.  You have to design the rooms as 'puzzle piece' elements, whereby every piece 'can' conceivably fit into every other piece.

In a stage that's mostly vertical, you might have more vertical segments, than horizontal ones.  The random stage generator would have to decide "OK, so here's the start of the stage, in this part of the global map, and this is the end of the stage, in another part of the global map.  The area between these two stages is the area I can fill with 'rooms'.  How many combinations of a pool or rooms can I use, in this playthrough?  Once decided, the generator would have to adjusts the entry/exit points (which can be variable; you can just 'wall off' segments').

It would be somewhat like how they did it in DoS with the sliding puzzle room, except the CPU always knows all the possible answers, and the rooms aren't perfectly interlocked squares.

The downside is:
-you wouldn't be able to use a map.
-the castle may at times feel disjointed.  Of course, old CV games were somewhat disjointed (if you map out Super Castlevania IV, it's mostly going 'to the right' and it's huge).

The end result would be to have areas, sort of like the "Sectors" in Metroid Fusion.

[uzo]

Thinking about it more, I believe the best possible implementation of this, while keeping the signature Castlevania style and theming, would probably be multiple enemy placement patterns.

This could be done in a couple of ways:

The first option would one of multiple hand crafted enemy patterns is loaded when entering a room. So if you leave and return, you will likely fight a new pattern of enemies. You could even give a ratio chance to each possibility, so there is a rare chance you may run into effectively a mid-boss type monster, while other times it is a bunch of normal monsters. Not only does this screw with repetitive grinding tactics, but also gives an element of surprise to each room. Suddenly, mid boss fight out of nowhere, even though you've been through that room a bunch of times.

The other possibility I came up with is based on something CV games have done very lightly in the past. The areas have a static non changing enemy pattern set, however, as you progress, at a certain point, the enemy pattern for an area changes. Usually with the inclusion of harder enemies. Past games used it lightly, and not very effectively at that. This could be taken a step further, so older areas become a bit more dangerous again, with entirely new enemy layouts.

And honestly, you could combine those two concepts into one.

I might try out that first concept at least in my own project. Thinking about it now, it sounds pretty nifty. Enemy patterns are much easier to mass produce than whole level layouts, and rooms can be designed to cater to many enemy layouts while not having to utilize evey point in every enemy layout pattern.

[Flame]

@ Jorge:

So basically, there are set "areas" in the castle, such as the clocktower "area" the dance hall "area" etc.

And those are set in stone, but every time you enter them, their layout is randomized. So the Dance hall will always lead to the Main Hall, but the area layouts will always be different in either.

But occasionally, you could perhaps get an extra door in a randomized room, that leads to some sort of goodie or shortcut. I think that would be interesting.

[uzo]

Yeah, that's basically what I was proposing in my first post.

[squaretex]

I really like the idea of enemy placement, uzo. I remember from tinkering with FloEdit, an old Wolfenstein 3D editor, that each enemy's appearance would be determined by what difficulty setting - or higher - it was set to. So while the population of a map's "Can I Play, Daddy?" setting was much less than "I Am Death Incarnate", it was all still on the same map.

Yeah, I can see this being fun.
"Ho hum, back to the Entrance Hall..."
*Slogra pops up*
"WHAT TH-" *CRUNCH*

[Flame]

Yeah, that's basically what I was proposing in my first post.

Well it sounds just dandy to me.

Kind or reminds me of what Capcom supposedly wanted to do with X6's Nightmare system, but never actually managed to do. (instead leaving us with not-so-randomized stage effects)

[uzo]

Well, they did do it in Scaravich's stage. It was kind of neat, but having the armor part inaccessible at random was a little frustrating.

Oh also, another additional concept. Randomizing doesn't happen every time you reload the area or room, but after a set time while you're away from the room or area.

[shelverton.]

This thread made me think of Portrait or Ruin, and what it could've been.
The castle would've been the same all the time but the portraits would've been randomized. It would make sense cause they're, you know, paintings. Some of the paintings could even be REDRAWN by Brauner as you explore to add extra confusion and evilness (though not to a point where it becomes frustrating) I think this would've made the game a lot more interesting and difficult.