Hey, haven’t posted in awhile – not much to report as far as actual progress. Having made rapid progress on a number of items having to do with decoding the infrastructure of the game, I have been turning my attention to a more theoretical realm – that is, the item shuffle algorithm I want to implement.
It seems like the Fisher-Yates methodology tops many lists, so I imagine my method will likely employ that at some point. However, the obvious complication involves ensuring that the shuffled item locations are conducive to the game’s logic and guarantee beatable seeds. Not having any direct experience in this arena, I find myself vascilating between two basic approaches:
- Do I first shuffle the items completely, then go back and make adjustments where necessary to preserve game progression? Or
- Do I start by generating a high-level walkthrough of each seed, and then place items in such a way that support that walkthrough?
I’m leaning towards the former, but welcome any thoughts. I’m also reading a lot of the ALTTP randomizer code for reference to see how they handle it – though that’s proven to be slow going. (Reading other people’s code is boring.)
The Illusion of Gaia Randomizer 