Jump Logs: Rooms (#2) | May 2026

In the last Jump Log, I mentioned that I wanted to talk about the lobby system, as it was the most recent feature I had worked on. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised it would make more sense to first cover some of the core systems that truly define Dimension Jumper. And one of the most important parts of the game is its room system.

Since Dimension Jumper is heavily inspired by Sorcery on the Amstrad, the interconnected rooms are naturally one of the biggest pillars of the gameplay loop. In Sorcery, players traverse rooms in search of the missing wizards before the timer runs out. Since then, many games have adopted similar ideas in different ways, The Binding of Isaac immediately comes to mind, although I admittedly still need to play it myself.

For Dimension Jumper, because the game follows the design philosophy of Sorcery so closely, I needed to create a room system that captured that same feeling while also modernising it and making it scalable. I wanted to be in a position where I could create a new room, connect it to other rooms, and have everything work seamlessly.

This ended up being one of the earliest systems I developed for the game, and still one of my favourites. Looking back, I love seeing how much it evolved and how visually readable it became during development. Below, I'll go through how the system currently works in Version 0.5, along with how portals connect everything together.

Rooms

Inside Unity, I've set up the rooms using a variety of visual editor tools and gizmos so I can clearly see their boundaries and connection points while working in the scene view (see figure 1). The green outlines represent the playable boundaries of each room. I took additional inspiration from Sorcery+ here, as the UI in Dimension Jumper occupies a large portion of the screen space. Each room is then assigned its own title. The red lines protruding from the rooms represent the entry and exit connection points.

Figure 1 - Dimension Jumper (Pre-Alpha v0.5), Room 1 [Video Game]

Each room is built as a prefab and has several predefined elements, such as (see figure 2):

• Pre-set anchor points that cannot be altered directly as a safeguard

• Tile and decoration grids

• A Cinemachine virtual camera

• Portal objects for room traversal

• Unique room content, such as NPCs, enemies, or items

Figure 2 - Dimension Jumper (Pre-Alpha v0.5), Room Hierarchy [Video Game]

Once a room is established, I can duplicate it, reposition its anchor points, and quickly build out larger areas across the scene. Interestingly, the first planet I'm currently developing is actually based on the original level I created almost 10 years ago for the original version of Dimension Jumper. At this stage of development, I wanted to focus more on refining mechanics rather than spending too much time reinventing level design, so revisiting that original layout felt like the perfect opportunity.

The current planet is called Urra Prime (although that could still change before release). And below is a section of the current setup, showing the rooms, their connections, and how everything fits together inside the Unity scene view (see figure 3). Being able to see the entire structure visually has made iteration and testing much easier.

Figure 3 - Dimension Jumper (Pre-Alpha v0.5), Connected Rooms [Video Game]

To speed things up even further, I also developed a developer console with commands that allow me to instantly teleport to whichever room I need during testing.

Portals

The portals in Dimension Jumper effectively act as the doors from Sorcery, just adapted to fit a sci-fi setting. As mentioned earlier, portals are the connection points between rooms (see figure 4). Each one has configurable entry and exit positions that I can manually control.

Alternatively, I can allow the system to override those positions and automatically place the player at the nearest valid point depending on the direction they approached from. This is especially useful for portals positioned in the centre of rooms rather than directly on the edges.

Figure 4 - Dimension Jumper (Pre-Alpha v0.5), Portal Connection [Video Game]

Another important thing is that portals are not limited to just the left and right sides of a room. They can be placed anywhere, and rooms can contain far more than two portals at a time. Some may even lead to optional rooms with unique objectives or rewards. The possibilities here are almost endless! It just comes down to designing them carefully and making sure the layouts remain readable for players.

Doors

Although Dimension Jumper uses portals for room traversal, I haven't completely abandoned traditional doors, they simply serve a different purpose than they did in Sorcery.

In Dimension Jumper, doors are typically tied to interiors and optional spaces. Players may need to locate keys in order to unlock them, and inside they might find rewards, hidden objectives, useful items, or even entirely secret portals. Below is one of the rooms from Urra Prime featuring four unlockable doors, each leading to its own reward or secret (see figure 5).

Figure 5 - Dimension Jumper (Pre-Alpha v0.5), Doors [Video Game]

Next Month

That about wraps up this month's Jump Log covering the room system, portals, and how doors fit into the overall design of Dimension Jumper. Rather than committing to a specific topic for next month, I think I'll keep it as a surprise for now. My goal with these posts is to continue exploring the major systems and mechanics that make the game what it is, instead of only talking about the latest thing I happened to work on.

The long-term plan is still to work towards the Steam page launch. Once that's live, I'd love to continue these Jump Logs alongside more videos and gameplay showcases so I can start sharing the game in greater detail.

Until then, thank you very much for reading this latest Jump Log, and if you have any questions about the project, feel free to reach out to me through LinkedIn.