Windows How to split big level

[psychoanima]

Hi guys,

I need a really good strategy for my first stage of prototyping. My level is huge, has many locations. Because it's slow-paced adventure game, player will go from location to location in classic point and click adventure fashion: player click to open the door -> screen goes black -> player is inside the bathroom. So, there is transition between locations.

With that in mind, I don't know how smart idea is to have whole level into one GM room? I think that parts of the level should load the moment when player decide to go there. When player leaves the place, that part should unload from memory. Or there is better approach to this, I don't know.

If I place whole level into one GM room, probably It will be easy for me to code and "see" things, but I don't know what's going to happen with the memory resources.


Do you have any advice or strategy how to make things right in this process?

 

[rIKmAN]

Hi guys,

I need a really good strategy for my first stage of prototyping. My level is huge, has many locations. Because it's slow-paced adventure game, player will go from location to location in classic point and click adventure fashion: player click to open the door -> screen goes black -> player is inside the bathroom. So, there is transition between locations.

With that in mind, I don't know how smart idea is to have whole level into one GM room? I think that parts of the level should load the moment when player decide to go there. When player leaves the place, that part should unload from memory. Or there is better approach to this, I don't know.

If I place whole level into one GM room, probably It will be easy for me to code and "see" things, but I don't know what's going to happen with the memory resources.


Do you have any advice or strategy how to make things right in this process?

Is there a reason you want to do it all in one huge room?

I would have each location as a separate room, you already have transitions between locations as a natural part of the game flow due to it being a point and click adventure game, so it wouldn't be jarring at all.

You could "group" connected locations together (ie. house, front garden, back garden, basement) in a single room and use the camera functions to display the correct area within that big room, but I don't even think that's necessary.

When you leave a room in GMS it is unloaded and and the new room loaded, so separate rooms won't cause you any issues in terms of loading too many rooms, if that's what you are worried about?

Do some planning regarding your variables, game states, object states, puzzle states, dialogue etc and manage your persistence you'll be golden.