Map Biomes

Work has begun on the new mountain biome. Mountain biomes on Enalia our similar to our Tundra on earth; a rocky area with low precipitation.

Below you can see some of the new art including rocky walls, trees & plants, a bubbling hot spring, a hawk nest, and a cave entrance.

Why Biomes?

This leads us to an important question: what is the role of biomes?

The short answer is that each biome offers a set of resources and challenges. In this sense they are the same as dungeons. The player enters a map zone, and in that map zone are resources to harvest and challenges to overcome.

The difference between dungeons and wilderness biomes is that biomes are a place the player will see again and again. It is where the player can return to for resources if they are struggling; a place the player can become comfortable with; a place they feel their increase in power as the power gap between them and the local wildlife continues to expand.

The wilderness also acts as a "hub" - it is a stage for more rare encounters to be layered over top (a mysterious trader appears), or means of transport to other locations (like the cave entrance seen in the above screenshot).

Difficulty

Most biome types will have players visiting of nearly any level. It is likely for both a level 1 and a level 30 player to find themselves in a forest, for example. How then can these areas be balanced?

The answer is twofold. First, biomes are not balanced, nor do they have to be. Low level players must play very carefully in the wilderness, and can find themselves easily killed by impossible or nearly impossible situations.

But this isn't the whole truth. For a type of balance is possible, which is to require player input to trigger more difficult content.

For example, below we see a snake rock. The player is warned by red eyes and snake movement that this is a dangerous rock. Clicking on the rock will trigger a difficult challenge with a potential reward.

Difficulty therefore is tempered by allowing the player to keep their distance or avoid interaction.

In my opinion this sort of challenge makes for good game design because it encourages curiosity "what is this thing? how can I beat it?" and rewards the player for mastery "I must be getting strong...those snakes are easy for me now".

Planning Ahead

Long term, I would love to see players seeking out certain biome types based on their type of character and the resources they will need. Forests will have more food, but deserts may offer more rewarding challenges.

Building risk vs. reward decisions into map movement can have huge impact on evoking a true feeling of fantasy adventure.