To prepare for more building and exploration features, work has already begun on the overhaul of the world map screen in Grabbus!


In Grabbus, the world is generated on-the-fly using procedural "cloudy" noise to determine the default appearance and height of a tile.

The output of two of these layers of noise is used as a coordinate on a 2d graph of biomes that can be assigned to any given tile.

These biomes relate to the terrain-generation rules and coloration of a tile.
There are 9 "points" on the current biome graph that are blended between, so that transitions between biomes appear more gradual and smooth.

The plan for this overhaul is:

• -Cut the usage of the expensive re-coloring shader, allowing for more performance headroom.
• -Go from 9 biomes to 16
• -Give each biome its own set of ground tiles that are meant to look nice next to its neighboring biomes, making each area more distinct and colorful, which opens up certain gameplay possibilities later…
• -Adjust the terrain generation rules to match with the newly-added biomes
• -Give each tile sprite a set of variations to help break up repeating patterns
• -Increase the pixel size of tiles, allowing the map to better fill the screen and make it easier to use/see
• -Add a "sky" effect layer for the background
• -Add a shading layer for a day/night cycle

We are VERY excited to get this big change to the world map implemented, since that will make way for more gameplay systems that can take advantage of there being specific things to find in specific areas.

This is just one of many big new features on its way, so please look forward to more updates as the art and programming catches up to the vision!