Alex Seletyn | Game Designer - Legend of the Lost Dragons

Legend of the Lost Dragons

General Description

Legend of the Lost Dragons is a top-down action-adventure game, where the world is different every time you play. Players explore three procedurally generated maps, collect items that help navigate the game's ten biomes, and tackle challenging boss fights.

This was a solo-developed Windows game that I worked on in my spare time, over a fifteen month period. It was released in March 2020.

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Initial Design

The game was initially much smaller in scope, as I had only planned to release it on my portfolio. The earliest incarnation consisted of one map, one biome, a handful of enemies, and the core mechanics of breathing fire and swimming.

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Prototyping

I also used this as an opportunity to prototype ideas for a future project. I had no prior experience with procedural generation, and I wanted to test it out in a game inspired by The Legend of Zelda. I scripted a screen generator that translates pixels from PNG layouts into correlating prefabs. I also set up a map generator that shuffled these throughout the map and randomized the exits for each screen.

Expanding Scope

After bringing the game with me to GDC 2019, I decided that the game would better serve its purpose if I fleshed it out for an official release. While I constantly found myself needing to reign in my ideas to keep scope manageable, I eventually concluded that additional biomes would be the most efficient way to generate the variety the game would need.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.