V 0.0.2 Update: lighting, item spawning, map update

Posted on 04/25/2025

Blog Entry Part 1: The Problem
One of the bigger challenges this week was getting item spawning to work properly. I wanted to introduce pickups like health, damage boosts, and collectables to give the player more goals and ways to survive. However, items were either spawning outside of the play area or not spawning at all. Sometimes they would overlap each other or appear in places the player couldn't reach. This was making the experience feel broken and inconsistent, especially during playtests where players would miss key items or get frustrated by unreachable boosts.

This problem was important to solve because item pickups are now a core part of the gameplay loop. If they don't spawn correctly, players lose access to essential health or combat boosts, which directly affects how fun and fair the game feels.

Blog Entry Part 2: Problem Solution
After digging through the spawn logic, I realized the main issue was that I hadn’t properly restricted spawn zones to valid positions in the map. I was using randomized coordinates without fully checking if those areas were walkable or visible. This also explained why items sometimes appeared in weird spots or overlapped.

To fix this, I created a set of predefined spawn points across the map that I knew were accessible and made sure the items randomly chose from these points. I also added checks to avoid overlapping other items or important terrain features. With this change, pickups now appear consistently in locations the player can reach, improving flow and strategy in each run.

On top of that, I gave the map a solid update — lighting is better, the stone paths guide players more clearly, and the whole level feels more deliberate and alive. These improvements not only support the item system but also make exploration and navigation smoother overall.