Design Philosophy
The level design was very important to us, as it is a staple of any memorable Zelda game. Therefore, we will also have similar types of dungeon archetypes with our own twist on them. These archetypes being:- A gauntlet
- A lock and key/puzzle
- And lastly an exploration dungeon.
Whilst on the topic of exploring, we also wanted to prevent the player from feeling lost. One way
we prevent this is by having landmarks that the player can orient themselves around. Every time
you go somewhere unique, there should be something to remember.
Now these are more generalized rules for each room within XEL. When thinking about the
individual rooms or even dungeons of XEL, we must know what the purpose of the area is before
we do any form of designing. Therefore, it is important to make a list of design requirements for
every part of the level, and once they are done you go to the drawing board. These requirements
can be anything ranging from:
Are there story elements?
Which enemies are there and how do they behave?
What gadgets are available to the player?
etc.
Once we have everything, we start with some really rough boxes, pretty much a 3d sketch. We
then start playing it and get a grasp for the scope of the level. We don't do any art design up until
the point where the level is done and tested.
We have some other general rules for specific purposes. For example, if combat can occur
within a level, we make sure that there are not too many obstacles in the way that the player can
collide with to prevent frustration. These rooms would also be dressed more aggressively
compared to puzzle levels, where you would have more of an overview of what you are doing.
But other than that we try to stay flexible with rules as we feel that this allows for creativity and
this environment promotes the most innovative ideas. We love to give each room the love and
care it deserves with the limited time we have.
Art Philosophy
The main theme of XEL is that nature is claiming back man made things. So a lot of the levels would have an organic feel to them. We also wanted the player to experience different environments so you will not only be exploring XEL in a bright, sunny pasture. We wanted to have the stereotypical settings such as forest, ice, fire, etc. But adding a twist to it so that it would fit within the setting of the lore (which I am not allowed to spoil, sorry :C).
One of the main things we wanted to avoid was to be too repetitive, and we wanted to prevent
the player from seeing the same things too many times. However, since we are working on this
project with a deadline in mind we cannot create endless assets as they take a lot of time and
effort to create. Therefore, we have to be smart when deciding if it is worth creating an asset
for levels. The general way we have done so is seeing if the creation of a certain asset would
improve the level because of it. For example, would it make it more unique or if you need one of
the aforementioned landmarks to help guide the player. What we really want to prevent is that
the scenery becomes too repetitive.
Things we learned
One thing we learned is that you really need to know the purpose as well as the puzzle mechanics of a level, area or dungeon before you even consider making anything for it. What does game design want from this area? Is there something important for the story? We found that without direction the levels did not feel inspired and while playtesting, players would not understand the purpose of the level as frequently. Another thing we learned is that It's a process that never really ends. We never really want to close a ticket in terms of when a level is done. So we had to find a way to determine when a level is done, otherwise the game would never get finished. The solution came in the form of playtesting. As soon as an inexperienced player gets the idea and is able to navigate the level without guidance, we can say that we are done. All in all, we hope that you enjoyed this little in depth look at our thought process for the level design of XEL.You still want more?
Check out our recent devlogs and dev diary:- New XEL Dev Diary: Go Behind the Scenes of our Sci-fi Puzzle-Adventure XEL![list]
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