Mapping With Randomness

[Lardarse]

A while ago, I came up with an idea for how to let the mapper create encounters that were random, but in a controlled way (so that the mapper has control over the "worst case" scenario). It can be used to:

- Randomly select a monster or an item from a group and put it at a specific location,
- Randomly select a location for a specific monster or item,
- Randomly arrange a group of objects,
- Any combination of the above,
- Or whatever else the mapper can think of.

Less of a while ago (but still a while ago), I produced a working implementation of this. Now that I've finally documented it properly, it's ready for release: http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files ... random.zip

It's been used already in the Remake Quake demos, but a stand-alone release was always going to happen. And now it has...

[Downsider]

Speedrunners will tear your heart out.

[goldenboy]

people who like change and experiments and variation will beg to suck whatever part of you for this work.

well done, don't leave home without it.

[Wazat]

I like this. You don't always know what's going to be where, which is a really valuable tool in keeping a map fresh and interesting.

Speed runners have their own thing going, and they should keep to that and leave this alone. What they do is cool, but not cool enough that we should never do new stuff. This should proceed with or without their approval. It's not like we're taking away all existing maps, formatting their hard drives, and holding their families hostage to keep them from playing the stuff that already exists in the way they like it. Though we could....