Hello again fellow Indie game enthusiasts and developers!
As I mentioned in our latest news post, we are currently working hard on creating a new area for our game which is unlike every other level in the game. In this post I'm going to talk a little bit about how we're working with these new levels and show you some really early prototype levels.
The Concept Phase
First of, we'll begin with some concept art that both the artists and the level designers work with to get some kind of feeling of how the overall structure and mood should be.
The first part of this new area is supposed to be just outside the regular Cubes where the majority of the game takes place. Things are falling apart, the puzzles cubes are thrown upside down and the player has to solve the challenge in a different way than before and the player moves between maintenance racks and broken Cubes.
The second area is more calm, less stress for the player and more safe places to walk on and even some normal buildings the player can walk into. In other words a place where the workers of the facility builds all these twisted testing cubes and how they travel between the different chambers. In other words an industrial place.
What both these places will have in common though are a lot of steep holes which the player can fall through and narrow pathways that leads the player deeper and deeper into what we call the "Evaluation Chambers".
The Block Out Phase
After the concept phase is somewhat finished (the concept art phase is never finished.. :P) it's time for the level designers to block out the environment, make sure it's fun to play, in other words, gameplay first and then make it beautiful. Please consider that the following pictures are only block outs and do not in any way represent the final result of the game.
First of all, let's create an overview. This time, I'm designing what's supposed to be somewhat of a station for what we call the "STM:s" - Subject Transit Module, which are trainlike objects which the prisoners inside the facility are transported with between different Evaluation Chambers where the Testing Cubes are.
This overview is first created on paper and thereafter build inside the Unity Engine with basic geometric primitives such as Cubes, Spheres, Cylinders etc. The idea here is to create a challenge where the player is stuck on one side the platform and they have to get to the other side. It's therefore important to foreshadow what later challenges might be. In this example; what if the player can jump on those large Cubes (Placeholder graphics for STM's), in order to get somewhere else. First challenge will therefore be to find a way to get the to the buildings roof.
After this, we let the player walk inside the building, the gameplay in this particular area will be quite slow and the player will be allowed to explore, breathe and just enjoy the environment for a while, instead of constant puzzle solving.
Let's not forget though that this is a puzzle game where the player controls magnetism and it's important that the game follows this theme throughout the game. Here, the player finds a hole in the roof and magnets on the floor. Hopefully, the player remembers the fundamentals of the game and use these magnets to get on the roof and clear the first part of the challenge.
Yay! The player gets onto the roof, jumps onto the Transit Modules and jumps forward to the next part of the area with new challenges to solve. When the whole level is built like this, it's time for the art team to get in, make sure it looks nice, that the atmosphere is nice and that the place looks real and not just basic blocks.
The art phase has not yet begun for this part of the game but we will update here as soon as we have something cool to show you, both new environments artwise, but also new cool objects the players gets to interact with in this new area. So, what do you guys think? Is there something you think we're missing, something that you'd like us to talk about, or just give us general feedback, please comment and we'll answer. That's it for this time!
