Sometime in the second-half of development, our team came together to have a discussion on the game's level design. Based on feedback we had received and our own opinions, we all felt that the original concept for the game's levels needed changing.
While the various gameplay mechanics and features we had been adding were generally being well received, a common point of feedback we got was that they were not well integrated together into the game itself.
There was also very little narrative being conveyed to players, with most feeling that the they lacked a clear goal and having to ask us what they were meant to be doing as they played through the game.
Even from our own experience, each of the areas in the game felt very disconnected, with the player being teleported from place to place through portals for no clear reason.
For all these reasons we decided that our next main task should be to discuss and rethink the concept of our game's vertical slice.
The New Concept
The idea we settled on as a group went as follows:
The player would start away from their village, on a visit to an old training yard. Here they would complete a short tutorial of the game's basic mechanics, before heading back to the village. Upon arrival, they would enter through their home's back garden, only for it to be revealed that their village is under attack.
Here we had developed the story a bit more, with the idea now being that the village's invaders have been sent in search of a magic crystal hidden somewhere in the village. The player is directed by a disembodied voice to a nearby wizard tower, where in the basement they find the crystal, unlocking the ability to use fire magic.
As they leave the tower, the player would now be ambushed by enemies, before narrowly escaping through a portal. Now having been transported to a strange icy cave, the player has to make their way out and through the mountains to an abandoned temple, in search of a second crystal.
The temple itself would contain a few short puzzles making use of the player's newly acquired fire magic, followed by a boss fight to conclude the game's vertical slice.
We were very aware that making such large changes at this stage of development would be far too much work for one level designer, so we divided the work across the team. Each of us picked a level section that we'd be responsible for designing and blocking-out.
The Mountain Pass
The section of the level I would be working on was the lead-up to the ice temple, or as I started calling it, "The Mountain Pass".
I had a few mains things I wanted to accomplish with the section's design:
Convey the sense of distance travelled and establish location relative to village
Teach the player about fire-magic's interaction with obstacles
Provide optional resupply area
Funnel and reveal for the temple
With this in mind, I made a rough sketch of the level layout:
I wanted to keep the section short, both since I knew development time would be limited, and also to keep the game well paced. The temple section immediately following this one would contain a large boss fight, so I tried to keep the intensity relatively low.
Rough Block-out
Using Unreal's landscape tools, I was able to put together a rough block-out of both the caves and mountain path of the level. I wasn't initially sure what method to use for putting the caves together, especially for the ceiling, but I eventually settled on combining a few BSP brushes to form some dome shapes.
Compared to the layout sketch, I only made a few small changes to the level's design here. The first was a change to the layout of the second cave area, with a pillar of ice now included in the centre. The two orcs in the room would now patrol around it, giving the player the option to attempt to sneak past.
The other change to the level was the inclusion of a new obstacle along the mountain path. I felt that the original path was a bit too long without much for the player to interact with, so I decided to break it up with a gap. The player would now have to use their fire magic to drop a large ice platform into the gap for them to cross.
Polishing
Most of the polishing stage for the level was focused on its visuals, with the exception of some change to enemy placement. I wanted to better convey the atmosphere of being high up in the windy mountains, so one of the first things I worked on including were some stylized wind-trail particles.
The caves in the block-out felt especially barren and flat looking, so I spent most of my time focusing on improving this area.
By moving the vertices on the BSP brushes used for the cave ceiling, I was able to create much more natural looking shapes for the ceiling.
I also tried to make the area more interesting for the player to explore, including things such as a note they could read that would explain more about their situation, or a small visual gag of a goblin frozen in an ice cube in the wall.
The outside areas changed much less compared to the caves. A few signs were added before the first obstacle by Josh, to act as a tutorial for using fire magic on frozen objects.
I added breakable supply crates to the abandoned camp. The player can use their sword or magic to break these open, and they will usually contain a useful item such as a mana or health potion.
More mana potions were also added before the bridge obstacle, to save the player some time should they use up their mana missing their shots.
I'm overall pretty happy with how the level section turned out, despite some small issues with lighting in the outdoor areas. I would've liked to have worked more on joining the Temple level seamlessly with the end of the Mountain Pass, rather than just using another portal. Unfortunately as we were quite limited in time towards the end of development, we didn't get a chance to do this.
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