The new version of Krusha will feature randomly generated ‘arenas’ (potentially with an number of different themes), and I’m currently in the process of designing the tile artwork and random generation routines.

It’s more complex than you might think – creating natural looking environments is hard when you’re working around a square tile based grid. I’m already using a number of variants with slightly randomised texture for the default backdrops, and and interface between regions needs to have a unique tile.

For even a simple scenario, with two types of terrain, you need at least 14 different tiles to ensure a smooth transition:

(Handy reference sheet available here)

So in order to get a more naturalistic and flexible playfield for the new Krusha I’m busy in Photoshop preparing the basic terrain outline tiles. Once that’s done, I can start hooking up these new tiles as part of the terrain generator to smooth out the current square boundaries.