Exercise Two: Voodoo Dungeon - Completed

The next project I completed was the second half of Exercise Two, my Legend of Zelda dungeon based around the Carry/Voodoo Ball. The Voodoo Dungeon is a a three floor level, the objective being to reach the end boss like other Zelda dungeons. There are mini-objectives to reach this main objective, the most important being the capture of the Houngan's with the Voodoo Ball and carrying them to the main hall before firing them into the giant masks mouth.

The level is presented over three A3 sheets, one sheet per floor of the dungeon. Each floor has its only 2D top down perspective map with a key for all the icons and a 3D room layout of the more complex environments (usually rooms with puzzles). My main focus of this level was to show how versatile the one mechanic I added could be to the gameplay. There are various different uses for the Voodoo Ball demonstrated in both combat and puzzle solving. To keep things fresh I also tried to make sure the rest of the mechanics (hookshot, bow etc) were used in conjunction with my own concepts. As with God of War, a typed level walk through will be attached with the level designs with an in depth explanation of every room, puzzle and environment description. 

Conclusion: This brings Exercise Two to a close. Zelda was a very different type of game to design for compared to God of War. With Zelda I had to think alot more about the environments and puzzles rather than the combat mechanics. Infact, I'd say besides the bosses I didn't even give the combat much consideration at all. Also worth mentioning is it was interesting to do visuals for the presentation on both these games. I used a Zelda-esque colour scheme of greens and yellows for the Voodoo Dungeon and an older, orange and brown pallet for God of War. I imagine if I had the chance to revise all the work on these levels I would change alot. I would especially have liked to add more hidden areas and clearly illustration for a few objects.

Exercise Two: Hyperion’s Prison - Completed

The first thing I finished was the first half of Exercise Two and that was designing a level in an existing video game but implementing a unique mechanic of my own creation. The first one I finished was God of War with my Achillies Armour mechanic. The level is approximately 45 minutes of playtime and is about 50% combat, 20% puzzles and 30% exploring, climbing and platforming. 

The stage is presented over two A3 sheets, the first demonstrating the stage in its whole from a top down 2D perspective complete with a key on the right. Also on this page is some quick bullet point notes on the Achillies Armour and below that is a ‘Pacing Chart’. The pacing chart is something I had seen designers on previous God of War games talk about during development videos so I thought it would be worth doing one myself. The idea is to never let the pacing drop too low and if it does something should be introduced into the level to bring it back up.

The second page took a while longer than the first. The idea was to take the rooms from the 2D map that were difficult to communicate from a 2D perspective and draw them in 3D with annotations. The decision to do this came from the earlier ‘Reverse Level Design’ project when I had trouble communicating a more complex room layout in 2D.

To go along with the two level pages I will also type a level walkthrough with details regarding every room on the map. That along with the two map pages should hopefully be enough for anyone to pick up and understand the entire stage.

Conclusion: Overall I’m glad I picked God of War for this exercise. Although there were limitation on my creativity regarding the mechanics this level has taught me things the others haven’t. Unlike Zelda, God of War is a fast paced, adrenaline pumping game for the masses. It’s important to make sure the game doesn’t slack but it’s also important the game doesn’t repeat itself or start to feel tedious. I tried to make sure the puzzles and fights are placed appropriate in the stage so the player never feels they’ve had a bit too much of one thing at once.

Exercise Two: Hyperion’s Prison

Just like the Voodoo Dungeon, I first drew up some concepts and locations by end before fiddling about in Maya to create a 3D model roughly interlinking rooms and demonstrating a sense of scale. God of War is more restricted in terms of design; combat is the most important theme of the game so alot of the areas need to combat arenas.  Between the combat there are some puzzles or short platforming sections.

One of the best bits about the franchise had been the sense of scale in the visuals and environments. With that in mind wanted to have that focus on scale and ways to portray that scale. The objective of the stage is to steal an item on a platform directly above the location of Hyperion’s prison, where the light is brightest and most dangerous.  At the very start of the stage the player is overlooking the prison, they can see the location of the objective far in the distant and they know their goal is to slowly make their way over to it, exposing themselves to more and more danger the closer they get.

The armour isn’t obtained till about halfway through the stage. The decision for this is the player would not fully appreciate it’s abilities without first witness the danger they would be in without it. The first half is getting closer to the objective and seeing the intense power of the light Hyperion emits, turning enemies to dusk upon contact. The player is at just as much risk and must spend that time avoiding deadly exposure. Once they obtain the armour however, after feeling the brutality of Hyperion’s light they will feel powerful and rewarded from being able to survive that intense power for prolonged time.

Exercise Two: Voodoo Dungeon

After I generated some puzzles and concepts for the Voodoo dungeon I started piecing things together to make very rough map outlines. I decided I would try something new in designing levels for this semester so thought it might be useful to very quickly block out shapes and sizes in Maya. I drew up some shapes and rooms to get an idea of the scale and overall shape on the dungeon. From there I could rotate them camera up 90 degrees to look straight down on the stage and import the image into Photoshop.

This very quickly gave me something to work from, I could annotate and draw notes on each room of the model and add/subtract areas I saw appropriate. With all the annotations and adjustments made I could start drawing around the model to fill out a 2D map of the 1^st floor of the dungeon. I hadn’t decided exactly what the contents of each room would be at this stage, so as I went along and filled in each room I brainstormed and came up with some different puzzles and obstacles the rooms could have.

From my earlier Reverse Level Design exercise, I knew it was important that my level should be communicated efficiently to anyone who read it. When I reverse designed God of War I soon found out that rooms with trickery geometry and puzzles were very difficult to communicate from a top down perspective. The most obvious solution would be to draw a 3D map of the stage but with the size of this dungeon, a full 3D map would just look too confusing. Instead, I decided to take the rooms I felt might look a bit confusing from a flat down perspective and created small 3D diagrams of their interior, making it (hopefully) alot clearer and easier to understand. 

The diagram on the left is the original version of the room on the right. The perspective seemed a bit confusing so the room diagram was recreated from a clearer perspective on the right.

I knew I had to come up with an overall objective for the dungeon and not just sorely rely on the ‘Get Boss key, beat boss formula’. Taking into consideration both the Carry Ball and the Voodoo theme of the dungeon I created a concept where the player would have to catch three Houngan (Male Witch Doctors) and carry them into cells which they would then have to present in the main hall of the dungeon to make the path to the boss. The boss of the dungeon could be either the leader of the Houngan’s or some kind of entity they worship. The important point in this objective is that the player needs the new special item to complete the dungeon, so it’s not just a secondary pointless object.

The first floor of the Voodoo dungeon is an introduction to the setting/feel of the stage before the real objective is shown to the player. I selected some of the basic Zelda mechanics (hookshot, bombs, bow etc) that the player would have at this stage of the game. The range of equipment the player has for this dungeon would probably place it mid-way into a full Zelda game.

I got the basic shape of the 2D map from the blockmap I created in Maya and then added the little icons to represent items or enemies. I created several unique mechanics for the Voodoo dungeon; the two worth mentioning are the Voodoo Portals and Voodoo Curses.

The Voodoo Portals are large masks on the walls of certain rooms. When awoken their mouths open revealing a green portal inside which the player can step into. The portal will take player to another Voodoo Portal somewhere else in the room. This mechanic is introduced on the first floor very briefly in Room 8.

The Voodoo Curses will be introduced on the second floor. They basically manipulate the environment into a confusing puzzle and the player must locate the mask that controls the curse and shoot it with an arrow. Doing so will return the world to normal. A similar idea takes place early in the dungeon in Room 2, the entrance hall. The large entrance door can only be opened by shooting the correct masks littered around the hall.

The second and third floors will revolve mainly around catching the Houngan’s which will open the pathway to the boss and the end of the dungeon. Whilst revising or populating some of the rooms I made sure that all of the equipment the player has is used regularly to make sure the dungeon has variety and surprise. 

Exercise One: Mechanic Development

At the same time as Exercise Two, I have been exploring the mechanics I picked for Exercise One several weeks ago. For each mechanic I brainstormed the ‘character’ a game concept could be based around, the tone and age demography and different ways I could use the mechanic. From the brainstorms I drew away the key points and notes.

For the Morph Ball, some of the key points I explored were perspective (either making a 2D or 3D game) and the use of secondary character. One of the points I discovered was the transition between Morph Ball and normal mode is almost like two separate characters so I thought, why not literally make it two separate characters? The concept I drew from my notes is some kind of 2D, puzzle/platform game where the two characters both have different uses.

The Octocamo was another mechanic I explored, I knew the key for this was finding unique uses for the camo and exaggerating its power. I thought as well as taking the camouflage the player character could also take the element/texture. So if they were to take a metal texture the character would literally become metal. Each element could have different uses to solve or get around the environment.

The others had slightly less interesting results, for Game Speak I developed a concept where the player would have different languages to talk with different species in the environment. They would have to talk in game to get out of situations or get NPC’s help. Right now, the next challenge is picking a concept I will actually take and develop a level around.

Exercise Two: Finalized Mechanics + Level Concepts

After further thoughts and input from some outside influences + opinions, I have decided upon the two mechanics I will be using for each game. For God of War, I have selected ‘Achillies Armour’. It really boiled down to the Sickle or the armour but I could think of more gameplay scenarios revolving around the armour.

I scrapped the Hades Helmet early on because I thought it would be pretty boring and unfulfilling to use as most of its perks are performed automatically by the NPCs.  I decided against the Mjolnir and Sword of Attila as there are already similar weapons on previous God of War games. So really, it was between the remaining three. The shield was next to go, first and foremost because the armour did the same job but the player wouldn’t have to be weapon-less whilst using it. I also had to try keep the appropriate God of War tone. Kratos is a character fuelled with rage and violence and him using a shield to protect himself didn’t gel as well as the other ideas.

To be honest, the decision wasn’t that difficult between the armour and sickle, I picked the armour because I’m already exploring Portal mechanics in Exercise One and wanted to make sure my work has some variety. So the Achillies Armour is the winner here.

Picking the Zelda mechanics were a little trickier as I thought I had several potentially interesting ideas to pick from here. First to the bin was the Climbing Claws. Although I can imagine some interesting segments using them, they’re pretty uninspired compared to some of the other ideas. Next was the Fairy Container, no real reason for chucking this one I just didn’t take a shine to it. I quite liked the idea of using the Spear in some of the level mechanisms but the scenarios in which you would have used it would feel incredibly contrived. 

I decided against the Magic Flute as it felt like it was giving me more work than I really needed to take on. So between the Magnetic Poles and Carry Ball, I had to write and see for which of the two I could think of the most secondary uses for it. Between them both, the Carry Ball won.  So the Armour and Carry Ball are the two selected mechanics for both games for which I will create a level design for.

It didn’t take me long after making those decisions to come up with concepts for a level. I knew for the Armour I wanted a level which would constantly expose the player to something dangerous that only the armour would protect them against. I quickly thought of the idea of Light or Heat. The movie ‘Sunshine’ (a film about astronauts travelling to the Sun), gave me the idea of the level I wanted. 

Keeping with God of War’s canon, I searched for a Greek God or entity that had the power of Sun or Light. Obviously Helios is the God of Sun in Greek Mythology but he has already been a reoccurring character in the franchise so I sought for something different. I found that the Titan Hyperion was the Titan of Light, also the father of Helios. From my knowledge Hyperion hasn’t made an appearance in the franchise as of yet so I thought that would be a good starting place.

Now in Greek Mythology, Zeus imprisoned all the Titan’s at the very pit of Hades in Tartarus. That gave me the idea that the level would be Hyperion’s Prison in Tartarus, over the years Hyperion becoming so furious and insane from imprisonment he emitted an intense light around the area. I drew some rough sketches and notes for the stage.

I wrote up a list of all the God of War play mechanics and tried to link them together to randomize and generate some order and time each mechanic could be used in the level. At the very start of the stage I want the player to see the scale of the stage from above it, so they know exactly what they are descending into.

My concept for the Zelda dungeon didn’t come as immediate as the God of War one did. I wanted to make sure the Carry Ball would get the right amount of expose so it had to be a dungeon where you had to shrink and carry things around.  Initially I drew similarities to the Carry Ball being like a giant Poke-Ball but it carried objects as well as living things but somebody made a passing comment about how it was like Kirby (a Nintendo character who sucks enemies up and spits them out). The idea of the item being alive instead of just an object seemed infinitely more interesting.

So with this idea of the Carry Ball being ‘alive’ in some way I gave some thought to scenarios. I thought maybe the item might once have been a person who had a curse put on them. Then I had to consider who would have the power to put a curse like that on someone. After a series of convoluted thoughts I came up with the idea of a ‘Voodoo themed dungeon.’ The Voodoo dungeon would have a series of curses on the rooms the player would have to solve, as well as enemies and environments being themed after witch doctors and Voodoo culture.

So with both concepts in mind, over the coming weeks my primary task is to come up with all the puzzles and environments for these levels before finding a suitable method of presenting these concepts visually. 

Exercise Two: Legend of Zelda Mechanic Concepts

Like before I brainstormed numerous mechanic possibilities for a 3D Legend of Zelda game, mainly with a dungeon item in mind that I could use to design puzzles and obstacles with. Unlike God of War I could be alot more free and unique with the Zelda mechanics without worrying about make sure the equipment had to all be combat based.

1. Magic Flute: The first concept is a Magic Flute, an item which allows the player to control NPC animals in close proximity. When played near one of these NPCs, they will follow and assist the player until the flute is withdrawn. Different NPCs will have different unique powers that can help the player, e.g. a large animal might help you lift a heavy object etc. When playing the flute enemies will stop attacking the player and dance.

2. Magnetic Poles: Two large magnetic poles. When activated the two are inseparable. The player can place the two magnetic poles in specific spots and activate the poles at any time. If the player is holding the other stick when they activate it they will be pulled towards the other pole. The magnetic poles can be useful for moving large objects or reaching out of reach areas.

3. Climbing Claws: These allow the player to climb specific surfaces and walls much quicker than normal. It also allows them to jump from a wall onto another surface. The player can also use them to attack or dig holes in damage floor surfaces.

4. Carry Ball: A large spherical object the player must carry with both hands. Certain objects, enemies or characters of sizes usually too heavy to transport can be pulled inside the ball. When empty the player can shoot a beam from the centre, sucking whatever it hits into the ball. Pressing the button again will release whatever is into the carry ball. This can be used to carry large objects, trap enemies or carry NPC characters.

5. Spear: At first glance this mechanic looks like a regular Spear but it has several uses within the context of the game. Besides being used a melee weapon, the spear can be thrown to hit objects or enemies. It can also be used to in the place of a broken leveller, sticking it in the mechanism and pulling it like a switch. It can be used in other mechanisms as switches or handles to twist and turn devices.

6. Fairy Container: A lantern like object the player can use to hold one of three coloured fairies in the world. It can hold one fairy at a time and with a fairy inside, equipping the containing will give the player a unique power. Green: Will freeze time for a few seconds. Blue: Illuminant hidden objects or writing in the room. Red: Attract enemies to the player.