So coming out of v009, I'm taking on the task of making a new, bigger, better laid out map, which means planning it out and drawing the roads/terrain heights and how each area is connected, here's my current draft:

To give an idea of scale, my thinking is the current map will be the size of the blue area, so a lot more ground to make! The consequence is a lot of asset work to do, but likewise I spent an hour looking at the current world, versus the different maps of Burnout Paradise, Mad Max, Just Cause and Fuel.

The current conclusion I've come to is that a larger scale is what's needed to attain the goals I've set out for myself with this game: which is to get a sense of speed, map knowledge, learning and playing around with routes and the puzzles along each one; maintaining a distinct feel for each area.

Now the new areas themselves I'll come to in detail once I've really settled on a map, for now here's a quick rundown, going clockwise:

• The Hub - the centre area, where you always start out and reconvene for another trek
• The Launchpad - an old airport terminal, this area will have you dodging, weaving through and over aircraft wrecks
• The Stacks - an enlargened area of the current mines section, exploring multiple heights where you can get a quick route over the mine areas, but if you screw up you'll need to figure you're way back up
• The Geyser - a geothermal plant, this area looks at going back and forth in a spiral, dodging volcanic rocks and lava as you go up the rockface, but coming down will be a breeze
• The Chalet - taking the current mountains area, this one will be re-made as an inwards/outwards puzzle, or you can have a go at clambering up the rockface if you're brave enough
• The Belcher - I've been playing Mad Max and like the Refinery, so I figured having a black sludge region would be neat, it also gives a small divider that will have long angled paths through the refinery's pipe structure, and large open pits of spilled oil
• The Spike - this one will be an interesting challenge to make, as I'm looking at it being a big W shape route, where you go in through canyons of the plateaus, to work backwards through and along the small paths to the spike (this will also require some re-tooling of the clambering physics to make it harder to just drive up the wall to the spike itself)
• The Sat Base - as a breather, I'm looking at this area being rolling hills, so easier to get to, but you'll need to plan out jumps or else you'll slam into the ground and lose speed, also maybe a tornado or something? dunno
• The Orb - a beefier version of the pillars region but with more planning to make it easier to understand the pathing through, or if you're crazy enough, you can try to hop your way across pillars to get to other areas

And that's where I'm at! Easy peasy, this will be done in no time.