Level design

This is the second post I will be making. In the run up to the mock pitch on Tuesday, Luke Perry and I liaised (Perry, L., and Waters, J., 2021) to brainstorm possible ideas for levels, and with it the possible materials and abilities that are unlocked in each level

We also tried to work with the idea of the Tree of Life being the heart of the temple and that manipulating the resources and materials within each temple kills the tree of life and with it, destroys the temple.

Here are some of the materials we came up with:

Bouncy (Green)

• This will be the first material you unlock and converting any material to it can be reversed. This can be used to make other areas in the game bouncy so you can jump between places

Metal

• This will be reversible for most materials, except plants or trees. This will make fragile objects more solid and stable. This material will make objects heavier for throwing to break cracked walls/ doors, etc. or to use as a counterweight/ lift other objects within a scene. Like the bouncy material, it will also be unlocked immediately.

Ice

• This material can be used to freeze elements in the game or make them slippy. They can kill plants. The effects of ice are irreversible.

Cloud

• This will allow the player to turn still water into clouds, which the player can then jump on. The effects of this are reversible, but only for a finite amount of time.

Fire

• This one is more of an ability than a material change, but allows the player to cast fire.

As for actual levels, here are some ideas we brainstromed that we liked:

Level A (underground jungle): The player can use ice to freeze elements within the level and also to increase speed through sliding.

• Objects become slidey so you can move heavy objects around with ease or slide on them
• Fire to melt ice to get through obstacles
• Symbolises soil

Level B (caverns/ big pool area): Water can be changed into vapour/ cloud for various purposes such as to access underwater caves at the bottom of deep pools. Once water is turned into vapour, the tree loses an essential means of survival, thus killing off the tree of life

Level C: This level idea may need more refinement but was based around an initial idea of the player being able to power a room and the mechanics of the room using electricity

For the pitch

As part of the pitch, Luke and I worked to put together a showcase level (Unity, 2021) which was not going to be a final level but merely demonstrated the core mechanic of changing the materials in the game, using the bouncy material only.

This by no means represents the final product but gives some inclination as to how the player can interact with the environment and apply the core mechanic.

I will speak about how this video performed during the pitch in a later post.

References

Perry, L., and Waters, J., 2021. Meeting about Level Design

Unity Technologies. 2021. Unity (2021). [Software]