God of War inspired Level - Blog post 03
The second area, initial combat scenario and why I added a huge blue cube.
Here I want to talk about the blockout of the next area, the ruins. Which houses the first combat scenario of the level, giving the player more story about the area as a whole. I will also talk about some minor iterations to improve the overall level.
Firstly a very simple yet I believe important addition to the level I added was my end point. One challenge I was facing was not having a clear destination for the level. To tackle this I added a simple landmark that represented the final objective (A giant blue cube for right now will suffice). I can go back and make it look nicer later. This gives me a clear destination while also allowing me to reinforce the players main objective through sightlines in both the current blockout and future passes.
Now moving onto the second area of the blockout, a smaller ruin. The goal here is bring the player in more confined space, creating a brief moment of tension before they encounter the first new enemy type. Additionally, as this is the first place they encounter the enemies I wanted an isolated moment where this could happen.
When working like this I like to do a rough sketch and then get in engine and get a better feel for the space. Keeping areas simple to start is great, for example this "exploration area", I can revist that later and flesh it out more and make it more interesting.
Here I am using stairs to emphasis the critical path. Vertical movement is something that naturally grabs the players attention so they are a great way of encouraging the player in a specific direction. Later on I will go and further emphasise this with lighting and other techniques.
Secondly, I wanted to ensure every player experienced the introduction to the new enemy type so to guarantee the encounter I added a one way valve into the space with the first enemy.
As the narrative of this level is about a Witch who raises the corpses of fallen victims, the intention was to incorporate this into the first encounter. The player sees a corpse reanimate before fighting them. Right now I have done this using a simple sequence and trigger box. However, this is something I will definitely come back to in the future, iterating on the cinematics and getting some form of combat working. But for now, this will do.
The first encounter is intentionally isolated. As it is the first encounter I wanted to give the player a controlled environment where they can learn about the new enemy before I increase the complexity later in the level.
As for the size of the space itself I wanted it to be as close to the original title as possible. Metrics for spaces like this are super important to give the player enough room to move around the space and fight the enemy without any snags. To achieve this I followed along with the metrics for combat arenas showcased in the great GDC talk about Level Design in God of War. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSB29qx6sWw&t=3704s
I will probably reference this talk a lot in future blogs as it has had a strong influence on a lot of my workings within this level.
The presentation shows that small arenas are around 16m in diameter so I used these metrics as a starting point before evaluating how they felt, I l settled on a space that is 16m x 10m. The goal is to have a variety throughout the level however, for the first one I wanted a small space.
One final thing I did was create a proper landscape material, just so I can paint some paths in to further showcase to the player the designated route through. This is another easy way to push the project into a better state, additionally means I can use other techniques to guide the player.
All of this culminates in the next area of my God of War level. At this stage of the project my priority isn't how good it looks. Instead I am focusing on the pacing, navigation and the fundamentals of the level. Once those feel right I will come back and iterate and improve areas.
See you in the next one, Howells out!
