Frictional Games Forum (read-only)

Hi. I was playing around with the level editor and I came up with something. What if there was an Amnesia game with randomly generated environments? It wouldn't be a full game; no storyline, no specific characters, etc. To allow maximum replayability, when you found the level door, it could be locked, and a key could be placed nearby. When you opened the door, it'd bring you to a hallway, which would bring you to another environment. The previous environment would delete itself and could not be accessed again.

These environments would come in one of three sets: Dungeon, Mansion, and Flooded. Mansion would spawn 75% of the time, Dungeon 15%, and Flooded 10%. They'd use their respective tilesets (Mansion = mansionbase, Flooded = castlebase, Dungeon = dungeonbase). They'd each have random monsters, scares, and items (except for Flooded, where a Lurker has a 80% chance of spawning). They would also utilize existing ambience depending on the level. Mansion could get Archives ambience and Old Archives ambience, Dungeon could get Prison ambience and Entrance Hall ambience, and Flooded will have the Lurker ambience.

This might be a lot harder to code then I think, but it's just a thought. What do you think? It would allow a lot of replayability for Amnesia, because most stories are jumpscare stories and once you've replayed Amnesia several times it gets boring.

So like Minecraft or SCP Containment Breach?

(08-16-2012, 10:47 PM)lolmaster Wrote: [ -> ]So like Minecraft or SCP Containment Breach?

I did start thinking of Containment Breach, but not Minecraft.

Randomly generated scares? I'm not so sure about that...

Sounds kinda immersion-breaking to me.

Um...I don't think there's anyway to truly randomly generate items in Amnesia, let alone entire zones/maps; the very best you could do is have a few pre-made maps (created like the elevator_wall, look it up) and set inactive, then create a random number, then use that number to set one of them active. As the player progresses, these areas are randomly made, but managed through if/else statements +variables to prevent illogical level progression (i.e. dungeon to mansion set).

That's the closest you could get, but true randomization/generation isn't really possible. Cool idea though.

(08-17-2012, 12:23 AM)andyrockin123 Wrote: [ -> ]Um...I don't think there's anyway to truly randomly generate items in Amnesia, let alone entire zones/maps; the very best you could do is have a few pre-made maps (created like the elevator_wall, look it up) and set inactive, then create a random number, then use that number to set one of them active. As the player progresses, these areas are randomly made, but managed through if/else statements +variables to prevent illogical level progression (i.e. dungeon to mansion set).

That's the closest you could get, but true randomization/generation isn't really possible. Cool idea though.

It's not only the best you can do, it's the only thing you can do. There is no such thing as "random" when it comes to computers and "randomly generated levels" in any game are just an array of levels/level sections that are cycled through according to a pre-determined algorithm (usually for dice-rolling and stuff like that very complicated dynamic algorithms). If you wanted to create so many levels that each experience felt unique you would just waste a bunch of time on something that would really not be enjoyable anyway. Even with conditionals the pacing and progression will never feel genuine.

I don't think Amnesia is designed for something like that. It would probably not end well, gameplay wise.

You're welcome to prove me wrong, though.

I think it would be cool if in certain areas it could be like different entity placing like oil, tinderboxes, etc..

(08-17-2012, 12:52 AM)MentallyUnstablePie Wrote: [ -> ]I think it would be cool if in certain areas it could be like different entity placing like oil, tinderboxes, etc..

That is possible. You just need to script it properly.