God of War inspired Level - Blog post 07
The Pushable block puzzle and bringing together all three pillars.
I am back to blocking out the main path of the level, and this next area is where I wanted to start bringing everything together. The goal was to create a space that houses all three of God of War's pillars: Narrative, Exploration and Combat.
As the player progresses, I use another level design technique, the Bait and Switch. The player approaches another lift, and as they have used one before they naturally expect it work the same way. This time, however, it doesn't. This encourages the player to turn around and explore the space they have just moved through, when turning a previously hidden route is revealed to them.
I like using Bait and Switches because they can make the player reconsider their surroundings rather than simply following the most obvious route. In this case, the previously hidden route rewards the player's curiosity and gives them a small change of pace from simply moving forward along the critical path.
The player then enters a vast room and this is where I have created a bigger environment to house all of God of Wars pillars. The main goal of this room is to push a giant block through a blocked door so they can climb up the other side and progress. Rather than separating each pillar into its own section, I wanted them to overlap within the same space. The player is solving the pushable block puzzle while discovering optional routes, fighting enemies, looting chests and gradually exploring more of the environment.
I started by planning out how this room would work on paper, I wanted to create an area that required the player to engage with it in several different ways rather than simply following a single route from A to B. God of War does this fantastically and this area is heavily inspired by the similar puzzle at the bottom of the mountain.
To create the pushable block, I built a Blueprint containing the block and some climbable meshes from the Game Animation Sample. When the player interacts with it, the Blueprint determines the direction of movement, attaches the player to the block and moves it 100 units in that direction.
Again, this is a fairly basic setup. I would love to eventually add the ability to both push and pull the block, but for now it does exactly what I need it to do and gives me a working foundation to build on. This was also great because it is continuing to push my skills in blueprinting.
I also deliberately allow the player to push the block in the opposite direction from the intended route. This opens up optional spaces containing chests and gives the player a reason to experiment with the mechanic rather than immediately moving along the intended path. The main route eventually leads to a giant door that initially can't be opened. To progress, the player needs to leave the main space and explore a series of darker, narrower tunnels. These tunnels contain enemies, a variety of passages, a Rune Chest and eventually a button that raises the door. Once the door is open, the player can return to the main room, push the block into position and continue.
I think the combat and exploration work particularly well here because they are layered on top of one another rather than being completely separate activities. The player explores through the puzzle, tunnels and optional chest locations, while combat takes place across spaces of different sizes, still following the combat space metrics highlighted in my third blog post. The final piece I am still working on is the Narrative layer. As Rob Davis discusses in the GDC talk, narrative doesn't always need to be a major story beat. It can also come through environmental storytelling, character banter or simply the spaces the player moves through. For this area, I want to use environmental storytelling to tell the player more about the Witch and her connection to this place.
I am really proud of this space, I feel like my work on this project is progressively getting better and and this is probably the best area I have built so far. I think it successfully brings together the three pillars of God of War while also giving me an opportunity to experiment with more complicated Blueprints and layer different types of player engagement within the same space. Obviously, it can still be improved through feedback and iteration, and I'm really looking forward to getting people to playtest it. But for now, I'm happy with where it's landed. It finally feels like a space that could belong in God of War.
See you in the next one, Howells out!
