Devlog #004 - Biomes and Maps Mechanics

Supernova Studio
Apr 13
2 min read

Hey Runners! 👋

Hope you guys are doing well.

Today, we're talking about the second most important part of the game: the maps.(The first one is obviously the tornados🌪️) We’ll take a look at how maps are assembled in our game, the biome we’ll have at release, and even a few spoilers for the future.

Are you new around here? Don’t worry, quick recap:

In Funnel Runners, you have ~20 minutes to loot the city, fix the van, and escape before the F5 reaches you. You can do it solo, or with up to 7 friends, creating ultra-co-op chaos.

👉 Join here: Funnel Runners Discord

Map Generation

Our maps are generated in multiple steps.

The first step is choosing a base layout.Each base defines things like the street pattern and the possible locations where areas can spawn.

Some maps will have more houses. Others might be more open.Some will be bigger, while others are smaller and more compact.

Area Generation

After the base is selected, the game moves on to area generation.

Each map contains multiple area slots, and those slots are filled randomly from a list of possible locations.

For example, a space might become a house, a park, a gas station, or another location entirely.

This means that even if you play the same map base, the areas inside it change every match.

[before areas are spawned in]

[After areas are spawned in]

Item Spawns

To make things even more unpredictable, each area contains at least 20 possible item spawn points.

That means a single map can have 200+ possible spawn locations for tools and items.

So memorizing loot routes won’t really help you here. (Sorry speedrunners)

All these steps exist to make sure that even when playing in the same biome, the map still feels different each run.

Biomes

Biomes can be thought of as types of maps.

They decide things like:

The assets used in the environment
The types of buildings you’ll find
The weather patterns present during gameplay

Release Biome – American Suburbs

The game will release with one biome: the American Suburbs.

In this biome, you’ll find locations such as classic suburban houses, parks, gas stations, and other places you’d expect in a small American town

The weather will include multiple storm types and several tornado sizes.

Future Biomes

After release, we plan to add several new biomes. One example is The Old West biome.

In this biome, buildings will look like they came straight out of a western movie. The environment will be more desert-like, and the weather will feature sandstorms instead of rain. And yes… tumbleweeds might even send you flying.

Some other biomes we have planned include: The Snowy Retreat and The Midwest

Farm

But we’ll talk more about those in the future. 😉