Photo courtesy of Techvibes

Another good tip is to think about whether your game will have multiple kits in it. This is often the case, whether it’s connecting different areas of one environment type (eg: sewer pipes and sewer shafts) or totally different types of environments (eg: ice floes, castle walls, dungeon chambers). There’s a catch 22 here: using the same logic across kits will make the much more compatible, but also can make repetition more obvious to players.

A good rule of thumb in this situation is to use similar kit logic for locations that are either total replacements for one another (eg: the rooms of temples and the rooms of a dungeon may be logically identical kits, but with totally unique cosmetics) or kits that will benefit from extensive combination between themselves (eg: the pristine and destroyed rooms of a space station may often need to be used together). But when you have environments that are more isolated, embracing unique types of kit logic can help the game areas have more variety. (eg: Castles with high ceilings versus caves with wide tunnels and claustrophobic ceilings)

One big saving grace in these kinds of games with many logically-distinct kits is to use a standard doorway system to connect them. If all kits use the same logic for their doors, windows, and other portal types, then it will save a lot of effort when you want to easily move from one to another. This allows a lot of creative combination of kits, which also helps fight the great enemy: repetition.

Art Fatigue

I suppose I’ve touched on some of this already; you can do a lot with kits to break up the grid and generally delay the player noticing the repetitive parts of a kit system. Interoperable kit variants and props can go a long way here. Generally speaking, the better you can mix and match pieces within a kit and other kits in the game, the more combinations you can come up with to break up the monotony and create interesting variety for players to look at.

This is why I generally stay away from hard associations between kits and certain gameplay or artistic decision. For example, you may decide to make a rule that only kobolds live in your mossy cavern kit, or that your posh castles always have bright, heavenly lighting. While this may make sense, it’s actually quite limiting. When you free yourself up to use kobold enemies and props in any kit, there’s a big increase in the variety you get to mix and match cultures with kits. Seeing a posh castle kit covered up with grimy kobold assets and moody lighting will shake up player expectations and fight back against repetition.

Best of all, this isn’t the kind of thing that’s really tools-limited. It’s more about your team philosophy toward the kind of world you can craft, and choosing ways to give your assets maximum versatility through mix-and-match.