Welcome to another update on Momentum. This week we are looking a bit at the process behind creating levels for Momentum. Let's start!
How are the levels made?
When an individual peeks at some of the various screenshots from Momentum, the persons first impression might be that making the levels for the project is an easy job. Well, it is actually way more complex than just chilling around and dropping random shapes into the scene!
Recently, there have been a few changes in the overall movement system, they have pretty much been finalized. It is defined that the player can normally (using an ordinary jump) jump 256 Unreal Units (we will refer to this as UU from this point onward), and with each continued leap the character can jump 10% further. This is also a gradual increase that builds upon itself.
Now here comes the heavy part. In order to create a nice and consistent level with a proper flow, the jumps should be able to be pulled off without having to slow down. The levels will be merciful to beginners but still offer a challenge for the more experienced. The level creator has to do continuous maths and a lot of calculations to plan out each path.
Below you can see a process of creating a very simple scene, where Norbert Varga was testing new triple bounce feature. This is an archived livestream video. It's about 20 minutes long. If you are interested in the process, have a look.
Keep in mind that this video is still showcasing the alpha stage of the game and that it contains various bugs. The sounds are all placeholders and the environment is just for pure testing.
The feature that is being tested in the video is the new wall jump, which we call "bounce jump". With bounce jumps, you can bounce off vertical surfaces up to three times, and then you need to touch a horizontal surface to be able to reset. You can chain these bounces together very quickly as well for a bigger vertical boost, or use them to your advantage to cross bigger gaps or climb obstacles.
Mentality behind Momentum
First thing first, Momentum is a game of creativity and "constant flow". As the name suggests, it's about non-stop movement. While most would consider momentum to relate to horizontal movement, we wish to combine the element of vertical momentum as well, thus we've implemented multiple bounces and a variety of jumping combinations.
Next to that, Momentum is a game that is being made to create a reflection of creativity in peoples minds. Sort of like constantly boosting the momentum of the mind. We plan on releasing all the assets that we used to make the levels for momentum along with the game, so that anyone who wishes to make additional levels can do so and submit their creations to the Momentum map database.
Really nice track you put together. I can see the player running thru the abstract levels to that for sure.
Very interesting.
I've got another questions popping up about the jumping mechanics. Does "touching a horizontal surface" include the ceiling? And how exactly is the jumping height determined for the wall bounce? Can you actively influence it by looking up/down? Is there any plan for adding something like ghosts (thinking about Mirrors Edge again, sry)?
And last but not least a big hooray for wall bounces, this way the possible paths keeps increasing :D
Ceiling does not count as a horizontal surface at this point, as it's above you. However that is an interesting idea, and we'll have look into that. Jumping height is determined by a variety of factors - firstly, it depends on your momentum when you touch the surface (standard bounce physics), and it can be influenced by a variety of factors such is velocity, angle and the angle of your mouse.
We most certainly plan about implementing something alike ghosts, as we already have a full blown tracking system implemented - we just need to load the tracked path and apply a marker (ghost).