The Final Level
|
They never seem to end, these levels.
Levels have been remade, redesigned, rearranged and reevaluated at a ridiculous rate. The final outcome, purely from a design perspective, is fine. The levels flow nicely into each other and there seems to be a difficulty progression that suits our needs. Feedback from playtesters has, generally, been positive. The desired aesthetics are met. However, looking at the narrative, we fail to deliver.
Ambient Pressure does not deliver much narrative. The player is instantly thrown into the game and there is no explanation regarding narrative in the game. What the game delivers is a deliberately vague setting, evidently underwater, but aside from that, it is pretty much left to the player’s imagination. However, as the player progresses through the levels, the environment becomes far more hostile. This is reflected not only in the appearances in enemies, but more so in how the levels look. There is a general theme that the initially metal environment becomes infected by unknown substance, and throughout the game, there is a consistent feeling that something bad will happen.
But something bad never happens. The game builds up to something that never happens. Se we decided we wanted an ending-level. Something akin to a boss fight, something that made this sensation peak. The result – spoiler alert – is a level wherein the player is chased by an overwhelming amount of fish. The stage ends with the player finally exiting this unknown place, and reaches safety. And so, my job was designing this stage. Worst thing I’ve had to do this entire course.
How do you design a high-paced level in a game about slow-paced exploration? How do you tell the player “Hey, I know you’ve been carefully exploring the areas before, but now you have to just trust me and run without regrets”? It is the most challenging thing I have been tasked with during this whole project, and it utterly frustrates me. I needs to be done right, and absolutely must not feel like a different game from the rest of the levels. Part of me is saying this is a bad idea and shouldn’t be done, but I see the genuine need for it and in lack of better solutions, I have to press on.
Above is a failed attempt. The player was intended to start from the bottom right, and immediately be greeted by enemies in all directions. They would have to continuously press on through the level in order to survive. The striped areas reflect areas that are hidden to the player. The intention here is that enemies will keep coming towards the player from the walls, continuously forcing them to keep going. The stage, as such, is pretty straight-forward and should be over before one minute is up. However, this failed, as players resorted to circling around enemies and ultimately died. Most failed at the very first enemy. It did not play out as intended and I will have to start over again.
The level frustrates me to no end.  |
