Random finds and item combining

16.03.2011

Since I've always loved exploration and finding things in games, I wanted to find a way to encourage exploration in Driftmoon. There are a few open spaces here and there with nothing in them except trees, and I decided they needed spicing up. That's why I invented ingredients! Roots, twigs, mushrooms, spices... When you find or buy a recipe, you can use it to combine the ingredients into a new item. I already made recipes for torches and health potions. I'm planning on expanding the system to include arrows and more, if you have any ideas for combined items, just tell me!

Of course I couldn't just have my ingredients lying out in the open. Well I tried, but it felt silly somehow. So I invented ingredient mines! You can find a pearl in an inland oyster, you can find green salt on the surface of a green rock. Once you mine the ingredient, it slowly replenishes.

Then I needed to find a good way to balance the amount of the ingredient mines available. I decided to make their locations random. All I have to do is place location markers on the map where interesting stuff should be found, and the game handles the rest, according to the probabilities I've set.

Ingredients wasn't enough of course, I wanted to add more things to find. So I used the same random location system. Now the location markers I've placed can be bushes, rocks, plants, chests, barrels, seashells, old boots, Snatcher nests, Deathcap mushrooms (which act as dim portable light sources!) or skeletons. I can add any number or strange and rare things, and they exist in random locations in the game.

Next I'm going to make some shopkeepers...