Viewing Single Trivia
subdirectory_arrow_right Metroid Prime (Game)
▲
1
▼
According to programmer Zoid Kirsch, when he first started programming and learning BASIC, one of the first programs he wrote at the age of 13 was a maze generation algorithm that could generate a maze of any size with a single solution (a C code port of Kirsch's original BASIC implementation, posted by him on Usenet in 1989, is included in the self-source tab for this submission). During the development of Metroid Prime, when designing Central Dynamo, the room in the Phazon Mines with the Power Bomb upgrade, he used the same algorithm to add a randomly generated maze for the Morph Ball that players would have to solve.
One of the game's tech leads Jack Mathews expressed concern that this algorithm would eventually generate an impassible maze, so to ensure that the maze was of sufficient length, he wrote a tool that would generate and then solve the maze, picking 300 random seeds that the solver indicated at least 75% of the maze was required to be traversed. This results in 300 different mazes that can be generated in Central Dynamo. The maze also features two obstacles along the route in the form of water puddles that must be bombed to short out the nearby nodes and open the path.
When this story was originally posted to Twitter in 2022, programmer Robin Lavallée commented that he wrote a similar algorithm for the Wii game Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, where all seeds were equally likely, and the solution would be stored as he built the maze.
One of the game's tech leads Jack Mathews expressed concern that this algorithm would eventually generate an impassible maze, so to ensure that the maze was of sufficient length, he wrote a tool that would generate and then solve the maze, picking 300 random seeds that the solver indicated at least 75% of the maze was required to be traversed. This results in 300 different mazes that can be generated in Central Dynamo. The maze also features two obstacles along the route in the form of water puddles that must be bombed to short out the nearby nodes and open the path.
When this story was originally posted to Twitter in 2022, programmer Robin Lavallée commented that he wrote a similar algorithm for the Wii game Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, where all seeds were equally likely, and the solution would be stored as he built the maze.
Zoid Kirsch tweet:
https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1591122506806882304
C code port of Kirsch's original BASIC implementation, posted by him on Usenet in 1989:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.c/c/Uw2mgfSPtbI/m/SXmTt6_pCB8J
Jack Mathews tweet:
https://twitter.com/jack_mathews/status/1591155796695732224
Robin Lavallee tweet:
https://twitter.com/robinlavallee/status/1591141684012003331
More detailed explanation of how the maze works:
https://wiki.metroidprime.run/wiki/Central_Dynamo
https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1591122506806882304
C code port of Kirsch's original BASIC implementation, posted by him on Usenet in 1989:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.c/c/Uw2mgfSPtbI/m/SXmTt6_pCB8J
Jack Mathews tweet:
https://twitter.com/jack_mathews/status/1591155796695732224
Robin Lavallee tweet:
https://twitter.com/robinlavallee/status/1591141684012003331
More detailed explanation of how the maze works:
https://wiki.metroidprime.run/wiki/Central_Dynamo
Comments (0)
You must be logged in to post comments.
Related Games
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Redemption
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Prince of Persia
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed Syndicate
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
Assassin's Creed Rogue
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Assassin's Creed Unity
Immortals Fenyx Rising
Assassin's Creed III
Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Revelations
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Assassin's Creed Origins
Just Dance 2015
Shining Force II
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen
My Pokémon Ranch
Pokémon Snap
Mega Man 9
Strider
International Karate +
Cheggers' Party Quiz
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
Star Fox Wii
Mario's Super Picross
Rhythm Heaven Fever
Final Fantasy V
Vegas Stakes
Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa
No More Heroes
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus
Mega Man 4
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Ninja Gaiden
Cars 2
The King of Fighters '97
SimCity
Transformers: The Game