Adding Tons of Levels to My Indie Game

Today I'll be showing you the process of how I created the world for my Metroidvania Dewdrop Dynasty!

🐝 *Wishlist Dewdrop Dynasty on Steam*

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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:10 Working on Level Design
0:55 Level Design Process
1:50 New Map System
2:47 Polishing the Game
3:58 How Many Wishlists I Have
4:43 Announcement
5:00 Brilliant
6:27 My Website

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I've been on a quest for over the last 4 years to release my first major commercial game. It's a lighthearted 2d action/adventure Metroidvania called Dewdrop Dynasty. Think Hollow Knight but with Ocarina of Time Mechanics and a lovable world and characters from Paper Mario. If you've ever thought to yourself "How to make a video game" or "How to release my first indie game" then follow along on my quest as I try to complete mine.

#Gamedev #Programming #Godot #devlog

[Goodgis]

Help Dewdrop Dynasty reach 20K, by *WISHLISTING* the game today! 🐝🔥
bit.ly/WishlistDewdrop

[thisisaduckindisguise]

I think what was special about Hollow Knight’s map was how entering a new area was still a mystery, the map didn’t automatically update the moment you rolled up, you had to familiarize yourself with this new space before the minimap became an easy navigational tool

[manzello]

PLEASE add the foreground objects to every room, it adds so much depth and it looks so good in the cactadillo room

[TheJezterGuy]

Something in Metroid dread that I think you should do is: when a certain room has had everything in it found, some sort of way for the player to know. Since it can be daunting to search the whole map for what to do next. Or maybe at least mark when an entire area has been fully explored.

[lincolnrogers]

I love the foreground objects in the cactidilla fight!

[ragreenburg]

Honestly, I hate having to buy tokens to put on a map. I don't like feeling like the in-game economy dictates how many places I have to remember as opposed to placing a marker down.

[HaydenTheEeeeeeeeevilEukaryote]

love the player roll animation so much, this game looks fluid to play

[mistermamamia]

The 2 most important functions of a map is to make sure you don't get lost, and tell you where to go next. Figure out how much you want someone to be able to wander around the levels uninformed as opposed to informed. Sometimes there's more exploration encouraged by not having map, sometimes it's the opposite. Typically for the opposite it's nice when maps have details on them that directly indicate unexplored areas or have a little bite size version of each screen mapped out so you can look at it at a glance and think "wait I didn't try jumping up here" or anything to that effect. So think about how much detail you're willing to put on the map and then that can inform how important it is to the player right away. If it's simple it can just be used to mark areas that can't be accessed quite yet.

[PrnceCupid]

Maybe add a way to change the player map icon because ✨️customization✨️

[aadenlopez]

One thing that I think you should add is a lot of Easter eggs. I love how in Stardew Valley there are a lot of stuff to discover. They might not be totally necessary for the completion of the game, but are there just for fun!

[CassyCodes]

Amazing. I never really thought about how complex level building really is. It must take so much work just to plan it all out, before even touching the art!!

[alvin_row]

I love the way Animal Well handles the map system. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that you have to unlock these features, but I love being able to actually draw on the map. There's many times where a marker isn't enough information for me to remember what was there that I wanted to remember. Plus, seeing the map full of arrows, circles, mouse-written text, etc. was pretty cool.

This also allowed for the game to have more complex pathing without cluttering the map. For example, there's these pipes that get you from one room to another, but there's no indication on the map about where they are or where they'd take you, so I drew arrows on the map for the most useful ones (particularly, there were rooms that you could only access through pipes, and if you just look at the map they look like isolated rooms).

Obviously this feature adds scope, but it's worth considering as it was really fun to play around with!

[John-zm]

Map:
-Needs stickers. Being able to mark where to come back to once you have new mobility/item makes the game way more enjoyable.
-Some visual land marks can be nice (helps ground the area and lets player get better feeling of structure of world)
-You could either have map update constantly in real time, or have map update in segments (Hollow Knight bench system). Similarly you can have a way to buy or unlock the non secret but still unexplored parts of the map (HK/ER type system). I think there's trade offs to both. I do enjoy being able to unlock the rest of non secret maps late/after the area though.
-Some way to indicate particularly hidden secrets would be nice. A room by room completion event probably takes the surprise out of secrets since you're being told immediately there is one. You could have some tracking of completion for an area of the map, or some item late game that lets you receive an audio or visual indication when in the presence of an undiscovered secret, or some item that marks them on the map again late game. That way finding secrets is organic throughout the regular play experience, but hints are available to completionists. If most your secrets are not super hidden (more HK/Blasphemous than Hyper Light Drifter) a system indicating secrets might be overkill, but still probably doesn't hurt to have late game.

Some last thoughts on maps:
Hollow Knight has a particularly weird and specific map set up. It's been years so forgive me if some aspect is wrong, but I think this is correct. You can update your map, but only at checkpoints (benches). You need to buy maps from someone who's not immediately at the start of the level though usually not hidden either before you can jot down anything. Buying the map shows you a basic layout, but isn't complete and doesn't show secrets. This system puts a sense of progress into 1) getting to any checkpoint, 2) purchasing the map [finding the map is a fine alternative], 3) exploring and lighting up the parts shown by the purchased map 4) expanding beyond the limits of the skeleton map you got from buying it, 5) finding secrets not shown initially in the map, 6) completing that full area of the map.
I'm not saying you gotta follow their recipe to a tea, but I think there's a lot baked into why it's enjoyable. For me personally buying a skeleton of the map was enjoyable and allowed me to better strategize when I wanted to keep progressing in an area. That later part matters less if the game isn't gonna be really open-ended in terms of area progression. It was also one of the most meaningful pick ups and that's something valuable in a Metroidvania where you want players to be excited about exploring.

General:
-Limited fast travel is great. If the map is large I'd say it's essential. How rarely you want to make fast travel available, and how you want to unlock it will depend. But without it backtracking with upgrades/new mobility often feels more trouble than it's worth. This is legit the biggest killer of enjoyment for me in games. Some backtracking is fine (limited fast travel), having to walk from one side of the world to the other whenever I want to put a new mobility tool to use on an old secret isn't.
-Exploration should feel rewarding. Interesting rooms/tiles, new or rare enemies (or combos of enemies), items that actually excite the player (this can be hard), mini-bosses you haven't seen before (HK showed very simple movesets can lead to memorable encounters as long as the encounter is unique). Hiding away good content always feels risky because you worry the player won't see it and the effort goes to waste, but if the only good content is on the beaten path exploration will feel absolutely unrewarding. This was my biggest gripe with Elden Ring where the finer of a comb you searched with the worse the quality of the game got (the main path stuff is fantastic, the minorly hidden stuff is great, the individual secret caves and stuff are mostly slop).
-I definitely feel like the rooms need to ask more from the player instead of mostly being about walking left to right. This is a matter of taste, and obviously doing it well requires a ton of work that may not be worth it as a one man show. How to do this is gonna be the combo of enemies and platforming. Environmental hazards (unkillable hazards you have to time movement around) could be good too.
-Progression should exist in some capacity. Do you have ways of doing more damage per hit with areas scaling to higher HP later? Do you get bigger or more interesting weapons? Do you find yourself wanting to use the stuff you find later, or do you end up sticking with some bread and butter. Does the mobility or other tools you find in the game meaningfully approach the game?

Feature creep is real. You can't devote your time on everything so don't torture yourself over it. Just throwing out my observations in the general thing. Good luck with the project, it looks great!

[atbeheij]

Hi! Could you please let me know the software you used to plan out the map initially?

Also the movement looks awesome!

[RedWitherITA]

1:12 what is the software used for blocking the base map? couldnt understand what you said, still nice video!

[JimmySchlosser]

I loved the Hollow Knight map with how it was laid out, with areas making sense (Lake over city of tears and whatnot) and with the map not giving too much away but still having a few key graphics to remind me of key elements I needed to return to. I recently played the new Metroidvania "Animal Well" which did something similar although leaving even less information on the map, instead providing players with stamps and a pencil to add their own notes and keep track of things! Also, fast travel points/hub; love to see one in any game and it can really be designed as a beautiful element that's enjoyable and not drawing a circle to teleport like RuneScape lol (although that's evidently still memorable to me 😅)

[xVovex]

This comment was a reply to another comment talking about Hollow Knight's map system and my take on it:

The thing that Hollow Knight had that also made it a mystery was that it was very hard and things worked in the background, it had a cycle of life that would work whether or not you were there.

Hollow Knight had little props you could break so pogo, statues, fences, the Lore Tablets (the infected NPCs) and just hidden details that if you paid close attention enough, you would see there was a story behind. One of the most known examples being the 4 Chairs at the Mantis Lords, with one chair being broken, and you later find out that there was a fourth chair for a reason after encountering the 4th Infected Mantis Lord.

That is something that I would like in Dewdrop, silent details that can be missed or be very obvious and would allow the player to piece things together without cutscenes or NPC dialogue. But it really depends on the game DewDrop is going to be, I've been watching these devlogs on and off (might binge watch them all later) so I have forgotten a lot, I have yet to grasp what the game wants to be but I could have said a bunch of nothing since this is my first devlog in a while.

P.S Goodgis, i really love your game so far, it looks very fun to play and very carefully planned. Wish you luck on this project, can't wait to see more. ❤

[lyfofniall]

Love the look with the foreground layers. I'm a backer but haven't tried the beta yet. Waiting for the full release. Can't wait.

[RKIOrbMage]

I think the best part of hollow knights map was being able to choose if you wanted to see your exactlocation in the map or not. If you did, it took up a charm notch (with the wayward wompass), but more experienced players didn't need the compass and so they could use it for something else.

[placeholderdoe]

What made HollowKnight’s maps so great for me specifically was that it was earned over time. You needed to work for all the convinces. This doesn’t need to be a payment but I don’t think I would like the map system in HollowKnight so much if in the early game with few geo I had to decide which markers or other convinces were worth the most.