Mapping
To block out my world, I looked at the main games that have inspired me for this project. However, I will be looking specifically at the game Hollow Knight for this because of its incredible world building, my own personal admiration of the game and because of the accessible documentation that is available from the behind the scenes development of the game.
I had a very vague idea of what I wanted the world to look like – I knew I wanted a sort of ‘central hub’ and from there to branch out to the different regions of the game world.
I coined it as “Limbo”, this would be where the player starts their journey, they may also return here whenever they please.
For better descriptions of each world region, go here.
Hallownest
I expanded on that map using the same process Hollow Knight used for their development of Hallownest
I roughly blocked out each area of the world and how they connect, annotating as necessary, including any ideas or things to consider for future design iterations, research or mechanics/features that I should note down.
I want to eventually zoom into each of the squares and go into detail for each area, specifying objects such as enemies, items, obstructions etc.
I’ve since steered away from a traditional world map used in metroidvania type games and instead leaned toward procedural generation to create a series rooms in a dungeon-like fashion.
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