World & Content

Setting

A giant tower has emerged from the ground. Ancient, impossible, unexplained. It pierces deep into the earth, and around it spirals a vast underground world. The terrain wraps around the tower's exterior like a helix ribbon, descending endlessly. Creatures grow more dangerous the deeper you go.

The Tower (Descent Zone)

The Tower is the primary gameplay zone and the game's content gate. New areas, resources, and enemy types are locked behind depth.

Level Structure

The Tower is divided into levels. Each level is a fixed size in chunks (e.g., 10 chunks long and 10 chunks wide). A main path runs from the first chunk to the last, with enemies spawning along the road. The last chunk contains a boss enemy. Defeating the boss completes the level and unlocks the next one.

Off the main path there are optional encounters: stronger enemy camps with better loot, resource nodes, and other points of interest. The main road is the idle route; going off-road rewards active players.

Procedural Generation

Every level is procedurally generated at runtime. No two runs are the same. The generation pipeline:

1. WFC pass 1 (zone layout): Wave Function Collapse resolves what type of content occupies each area (road, open terrain, enemy clusters, resource nodes, points of interest).
2. WFC pass 2 (tile identity): Resolves individual tiles within zones to specific tile identities.
3. Geometry and textures: Each WFC tile identity maps to a geometry shape and texture/splat configuration.
4. Perlin noise: Layers on top for organic variation: height displacement, texture blending, biome transitions between depth tiers.

Content density and difficulty scale with depth as WFC rule sets and noise parameters shift per depth tier.

Open Questions

Chunk generation radius around the player. Caching/discarding strategy for generated chunks.

Depth Tiers

The world shifts in theme as the player descends, moving from grounded medieval fantasy near the surface toward increasingly mythic and strange environments at depth. The prototype builds two tiers fully, with a third designed on paper.

TIP

"Biomes" in the terrain pipeline are a generation tool. They control chunk shape, coloring, and texture.

Tier 1: The Hollows (Prototype: Built)

Crumbling stone architecture, old roots breaking through walls, dim torchlight. Ancient ruins swallowed by the earth. Grounded medieval fantasy.

Vibe	Abandoned dungeon, buried ruins
Palette	Warm stone, muted earth tones, torchlight amber
Enemies	Goblins, rats, skeletons, basic undead
Resources	Copper ore, tin ore, regular trees
Loot Tier	Common

Tier 2: The Verdant Deep (Prototype: Built)

The ruins give way to something alive. Bioluminescent fungi, tangled root networks, underground pools with a faint glow. Nature reclaimed this place long ago. The shift tells you the tower is far older than anything on the surface.

Vibe	Overgrown underground wilderness, alive and ancient
Palette	Deep greens, bioluminescent blues and purples, dark water
Enemies	Cave beasts, fungal creatures, evolved underground predators
Resources	Iron ore, coal, strange wood from root networks
Loot Tier	Uncommon

Tier 3: The Pale Reach (Design Only)

The growth fades. The stone changes. Geometry stops making sense: corridors curve wrong, crystalline formations hum, carved symbols in a nonexistent language. The mythic turn. The tower is revealing something.

Vibe	Surreal, wrong, alien architecture
Palette	Pale stone, crystal whites, faint otherworldly glow
Enemies	Constructs, bound spirits, ancient guardians
Resources	Higher-tier ores, rare materials that don't exist on the surface
Loot Tier	Rare+

Open Questions

Depth breakpoints between tiers. Transition style: hard boundary or gradual blend via WFC rule set interpolation? How many distinct enemy types per tier?

Enemies

Enemies are depth-tiered and reflect the thematic identity of each zone. Stats (Attack, Strength, Defence, HP, attack speed) scale with depth within each tier, so even within The Hollows there's a steady difficulty ramp. Different enemy types have distinct combat profiles: a goblin is fast but fragile, a skeleton is slow but armored.

See Combat System for aggro radius, leashing, kiting, and engagement rules.

Open Questions

How many distinct enemy types per tier for the prototype? Visual variation (size/silhouette) or stat-only differences? Boss encounters at tier boundaries?

The Overworld (Hub Zone)

A small settlement near the Tower entrance, rendered in 3D on the same engine. Same camera, same controls, same feel as the Tower. The transition between zones is seamless.

The settlement contains:

• Bank. Persistent storage for loot, gear, and resources. The player's inventory has limited space; the bank stores surplus.
• Vendor / Shop. Buys and sells items for gold. Converts unwanted loot to gold, sells consumables and entry-level gear.
• Checkpoint Map. A UI element for teleporting to unlocked Tower checkpoints.
• NPCs & Quests. Simple fetch and kill quests (e.g., "bring 10 copper ore," "kill 5 goblins"). Rewards include XP, items, and gold. Gives the player directed short-term goals alongside the open-ended Tower grind.

Open Questions

How many NPCs for the prototype? Named characters with personality or generic functional roles? Settlement name? Ambient NPCs for atmosphere? Quest structure: repeatable or one-time? Progressive unlocks tied to depth? Chains or standalone?

Checkpoints

Checkpoints exist at the start of every level. Each level is a fixed size (e.g., Level 1 is 10 chunks long and 10 chunks wide). Level 2 starts at chunk 10 with a new checkpoint, and so on down the Tower.

Activation. The player walks up to a checkpoint marker and interacts with it to unlock it.

Teleportation. Once unlocked, checkpoints are permanent. The player can freely teleport between any unlocked checkpoint at any time: warp to the overworld, farm earlier levels, or pick a respawn point.

Death & Respawn. On death, the level seed is randomized and a new level is generated for the next attempt. The previous layout becomes inaccessible. All XP and inventory earned during the run are preserved.