I had a bit of troubles recently, can’t make my mind on what system to use for the map and in general for the game. I want to avoid long walking, as I already said. But at same time I don’t want just a series of icon connected with passages, each one representing a room in the game. That would mean the game would be very short.
Instead I finally came up with what I think a good idea. A topdown map, in which you’ll see an icon representing your party moving on it, and the monsters as well. I’m thinking of making it real-time, with possibility to pause it. The combat instead will be turnbased, unless I change my mind at last moment. In any case, even if it will be real-time, I’ll add the possibility to pause the game any moment.
What would be cool with the map made this way, is that you could see where the monsters are positioned, and so try to avoid them. I want also to implement a sort of line of sight, variable for each monster, so if there are monster particularly blind you can move just behind them. Or if there are others too slow, you can outrun them. Then once you are near (on same cell of the map), the view zooms in and you start the first-person combat with the view I showed you in the previous post.
I’m making the map editor right now – since I plan to make a trilogy of this game, better build up proper tools, which probably will be released to the public after the 3rd episode so people can make mods.