(MOD IDEA) Archipelago

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Archipelago is type of multigame multiworld randomizer that already has a wide variety of games available. I figured it'd be cool if we could find a way to impliment it here, too. unfortunately I'm not much of a programmer so I'm not quite sure how to impliment things like...websocket connections and such. for more info tho you can go to the website or discord or the thread I made for this game on said discord.
https://archipelago.gg/
https://discord.gg/8Z65BR2
https://discord.com/channels/731205301247803413/1483072930601767115

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things that could get randomized is items that can be crafted. could also receive items through archipelago. maybe randomize what tiamana leylines give and have rosary beads put into the item pool as well. I don't quite know what the ending of the game is like. if there even is one. so I definitely need to explore it more in general.

Frankly I'm just making this thread early so others can take up the mantle. I'm very interested in this game, nonetheless, tho.

[white pond]

i may try! no idea what archipelago is but this seems fun

https://github.com/EmilyV99/GodotAP there is seemingly already alibrary

for godot

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basically it's a multiworld multigame randomizer. essentially items get put into a pool and then distributed across "checks" so for instance, someone's empty bottle for a Zelda game could be locked behind, say, someone destroying a certain gold beetle in Sonic Adventure 2.

ahhh nice

[white pond]

ill have to learn more about it but this seems fun

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also maybe the mod could implement solo randomization

[halcyon mica]

oooohhh im surprised I didn't think about this

would be down to help with this

ofc the main problem rn would be how AP progression would even work in this kinda game

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right. there's certain ways the minecraft apworlds handle things. like locking the ability to craft certain items and throwing those recipes into the item pool.

[halcyon mica]

but we have a LOT more recipies to work with

we could just outright prevent the user from fusing if it'd make an item that they haven't unlocked

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shoot, and that has to be taken into account when deciding logic

[halcyon mica]

also what would the location checks be?

[halcyon mica]

yeah logic is gonna be a HUGE pain

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I gave some ideas in the AP thread. one sec

Lucid Blocks is a surreal block based survival game with a dynamic crafting system where you merge two or more items together based on vibes. it also generates infinitely not only on the horizontal axes but the vertical axis as well.

Potential checks may include:
finding tiamana leylines
completing tiamana challenges

Here's some ideas for items:
rosary beads
glider glove
gyro hook
experience or instant level ups
bubblebear eggs
dog blocks
glaggle tokens

The goal could be reaching the end of the game by filling up the rosary and....reaching the ending? maybe? the game is very mysterious. and would need further exploration to form a full idea of how an apworld should be handled.

maybe the glider glove and gyro hook could be only obtained from the item pool, making it work giving them infinite durability.

technically not necessary. since you can always break and place blocks to get to places...but it's very useful.

[halcyon mica]

right yeah

[halcyon mica]

ig my problem with This version is that, because of this, there'd be No logic, meaning no AP progression really

bc of the way tiamana leylines work, you cant really "gate them off" easily

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that's true... the logic may have to rely on pendants. technically the leylines can be found without them but it'd be so unreasonable that it should count as needing pendants for the logic

unless you like... use a predetermined seed. but where's the fun in that?

[halcyon mica]

actually, i just thought of something

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oh?

[halcyon mica]

so, Leylines always generate within certain Structures

structures generate within certain Biomes

so, maybe gating off biomes (or at least interacting with blocks in biomes, to prevent softlocks) could work?

hmmm

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that'd be interesting not sure how good that'd be in practice, tho. we'd have to experiment

[halcyon mica]

yeah

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probably should make a github project for this. I'd prefer to let, like, a "main coder" set that up tho. if not the person who ends up overseeing the project as a whole.

[simple lagoon]

for a nonlinear sandbox game like this itd probably be a good idea to see how minecraft is implemented for inspo? https://archipelago.miraheze.org/wiki/Minecraft

i really like this game and i love the idea of archipelago so it'd be awesome if this got implemented

perhaps the game's achievements could work as a form of gating? like instead of beating the game it's 100%ing? honestly not sure kyself since its so nonlinear

maybeeee you could lock itens from being able to be output from apotheosis until unlocked and also hannahs idea where structures required certain items would make it work

[simple lagoon]

if anything, a randomizer mod would be cool to randomize all recipe outputs

[quartz ridge]

Random recipes I think would be a bit out of scope for an ap implementation tho tbqh

[tidal comet]

i think randomizing reicpes would be in the spirit of a randomizer tho

what makes it out of scope? is it difficult to implement? or maybe it would be especially tricky if a progression ap item became uncraftable or unreasonable to find..

[quartz ridge]

Basically just down to the nature of how ap works, it’s not really designed for such randomization to make it play well

AP generally prefers a sort of “lock and key” approach randomization (where you have something locking your progress, and needing a “key” to get through that progression lock)

The issue with recipe randomization is you would need to write logic for how to obtain every single item to ensure randomized recipes won’t lock some important item behind some otherwise unobtainable item

[woeful cobalt]

Your level ups in lucid blocks could give you checks for other games and some of the other games checks for you could give you access to level ups. It would keep you from just being able to rush to the end of the game. Or maybe you are locked in a starting biome and one of the things that gets unlocked for you is access to new biomes. Idk about the second one but I like the first idea

[quartz ridge]

(Factorio is currently the only sandbox game with such a feature, but it’s fairly limited in scope to only science packs/rocket parts. Though it already has logic for obtaining different crafting comments with its technologies making recipe randomization far more streamlined)

Imho I feel like this game might be a bit too open ended to really force it to work well with ap without significant changes to restrict progression a bit (granted I also haven’t played it all that much)

[woeful cobalt]

I think making the level ups your checks could work, it would keep you from rushing the leylines. Maybe the checks give you a random thing from the level up (stat boost, clonoqualia, leyline pendant, etc)

As well as maybe giving permanent unbreakable items (hook, glider glove, weapons)

[tidal comet]

i mean, i've played ap games that do that, it might be tricky but its possible . not required tho

[tidal comet]

i mean beads are progression. you could just use beads i think worst case

[woeful cobalt]

Not a bad idea, then the leylines would give you a random ap check instead of a bead

[tidal comet]

[woeful cobalt]

I think that'd actually work pretty well

[quartz ridge]

Do the individual beads do much for progression though outside of being a sort of goal mcguffin tho?

[quartz ridge]

Also the thing with level ups is there wouldn’t be much stopping people from just grinding to max level from the start which probably wouldn’t be very fun (and could slow down the early game of a seed if all level checks are available from sphere 1 and someone’s morph ball gets put on level 40 or something)

[tidal comet]

they are literally how you beat the game :p

i mean yes, it wouldn't stop you from progressing burger king style

[quartz ridge]

Could add some level cap per bead you receive though to add some extra logical requirement for it

[tidal comet]

fair

tbf not all AP games have logical progression

shrug tho

[quartz ridge]

Even just a soft requirement would be good because having no logic at all can feel really bad

At the very least there should be some soft logic so you aren’t forced to do long grind locations at the start of a seed to free someone

[quartz ridge]

Also that’s kind of my point lol. Them being only used for goal wouldn’t exactly make it feel any better to play tbqh

It would just prevent you from being able to rush goal immediately and ignore engaging with the rest of the game’s locations

[quartz ridge]

Due to how the AP generator works I would strongly disagree with that notion though. The way the generator works is to grab every location accessible with every player’s starting inventory and place some amount of progression items in those locations (creating “sphere 1”). From there it’ll grab all the newly accessible locations to form “sphere 2” and repeat until all progression is placed.

If there is no logical requirements in an apworld, there is nothing stopping the generator from placing early progression into late game areas (like reaching level 40 or clearing 10 leylines) forcing the player to play a significant part of their game before the player locked behind that item will be free

And this issue gets worse if hint costs are too high as the player won’t know if they need to rush late game locations early or not and instead likely will focus on easier to reach locations

Pretty much every apworld that is in a stable state has at least some logic for this reason, regardless if said logic is strictly enforced in game

(Even alttp’s “no logic” mode actually has logic still. The “no logic” part only applies to local item placements, off world items just use “hybrid major glitches” logic.)

[tidal comet]

i c

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which is why I suggest having leylines be checks and pendants be in the item pool. having the pendants be logically required for the leylines. but we would want something more complex than that.

minecraft does lock groups of recipes rather than randomizing them. the issue with taking that as inspiration is that the recipes in this game is rather dynamic. we would want to learn more about how they work first.

also, there's like... three minecraft apworlds. the normal one, one for minecraft-fabric, and then there's Minecraft Dig. Minecraft Dig is sort of a side apworld where instead of going after advancements to goal, you're trying to clear out layers of blocks in a single chunk. each layer being a check and items in the pool can help or hinder your progression. could try making something like that just to get the ball rolling.

[quartz ridge]

I imagine you'd probably want some logical requirements for what is needed to clear a leyline too (granted I've only actually found 1 so far and didn't make it very far)

Unless all of them are just easy to cheese if you bring in an excess of blocks

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the logical requirement being the leaky pendants since they are hard to find without them

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could also have achievements be goals, similar to minecraft advancements. also seen other games with optional achievement checks. such as Corn Kidz 64

[exotic quartz]

the solution is to make buds be the checks, rather than blooming. throw maybe 20 into the pool that can show up as buds when you level up, and then when you run out it starts giving you normal buds (besides pendants, which imo should only be from items, and not deplete on a failed challenge)

having multiple show up and having a choice between them makes it much harder to get locked out of things