Vixen
caa30e12

Gameplay · guide

Maps, discovery and travel

A revealed-area bitmap per character per map, completion that only counts what a designer opted in, and five ways of getting somewhere that all resolve to one transfer.

Edit this page on GitHub

Documents

What it is#

A MapChart is what is on a map worth finding; an ExplorationRecord is one character's discoveries and their fog. A TravelPoint is a portal, a waypoint, a taxi, a summon or an instance door, and Travelling says whether somebody may use one.

What it is for#

Doc 28: exploration is *"points of interest, map discovery with a revealed-area bitmap per character, vistas, waypoint unlocks and completion percentages"*, and travel is the client-facing half of doc 27's transfer — *"the only thing this library adds is the fiction"*.

Using it#

Compile both libraries. Call Reveal as somebody moves and Discover when they reach something; call Travelling.Order and hand what comes back to the realm.

⚠ Completion counts only points marked counts, and is computed rather than stored — otherwise a patch that adds one un-completes a finished map for everybody.

⚠ Fog is revealed and never re-hidden, and the reveal is a square: the difference is invisible under a fog texture and a circle costs a multiply per cell on the hottest call here.

⚠ A waypoint's unlock is a tag, so travel never references exploration — and a waypoint can therefore be unlocked by a quest or a purchase too.

⚠ The unlock is checked before the requirements: "you have not found this" is the useful answer.

⚠ Nothing here moves a player or takes a fare. Order produces a TransferOrder; doc 27's RequestTransfer and the caller's ledger do the rest — a fare taken before a transfer that fails is a player who paid to stay put.

Examples#

A map and a waypoint that unlocks from it:

yaml
# Assets/Maps/queensdale.vxdef!MapDefinitiondisplayName: Queensdalecolumns: 64rows: 64tag: Completion.Queensdalepoints:  - { id: ascalon, kind: Landmark, tag: Discovered.Queensdale.Ascalon }  - { id: camp, kind: Waypoint, tag: Discovered.Queensdale.Camp }  - { id: cache, kind: Cache, tag: Discovered.Queensdale.Cache, counts: false }# Assets/Travel/camp-waypoint.vxdef!TravelPointDefinitiondisplayName: Camp waypointkind: Waypointto: maps/queensdaleunlockedBy: Discovered.Queensdale.Camp    # the tag the point of interest grantscurrency: currency/goldcost: 150

Walking around and finding things:

csharp
using Vixen.Gameplay;using Vixen.Gameplay.Exploration;static class Walking {    public static int Moved(ExplorationRecord record, MapChart map, int column, int row) =>        record.Reveal(map, column, row, radius: 3);    public static float Arrived(ExplorationRecord record, MapChart map, PointOfInterest point, IRequirementContext who) {        // Grants the point's tag, which is what unlocks the waypoint over in Travel.        record.Discover(map, point, who);        return record.CompletionOf(map);    }}

Going somewhere:

csharp
using Vixen.Gameplay;using Vixen.Gameplay.Travel;static class Waypoints {    public static TransferOrder? Use(        TravelPoint waypoint,        PlayerId who,        DefId here,        IRequirementContext context,        IReadOnlyDictionary<uint, long> purse    ) =>        // An order, not a transfer, and the fare is owed rather than taken.        Travelling.Order(waypoint, who, here, context, purse, out var order) == TravelRefusal.None ? order : null;}

See also#