Beginning Hills
From Concept to Full Construction
This was the first stage I created at the beginning of development, and my producer prompted me to create an area with: “5 moments of discovery and exploration”. I was unsure how far I should have taken this Block Mesh, even if I was told to keep it simple.
I decided to create a grassy area with hills, ruins, and mountainous rock walls where the Player was placed in a near center location, surrounded by focal points and always saw something no matter the direction they were facing. There was always something to catch their eye and prompt them to go places.
Visual design elements included in the level :
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Ruins: Blue
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Grass: Green
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Hills: Brown and Green
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Flowers: Purple, Yellow, Dark Green
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Caves/mountain walls: Grey, Blue, and Red
All these elements work together to create a healthy but not overwhelming variety of shapes, colors, and things to look at.
This means the element of the level looks and feels healthy in its presentation, and each focal point looks distinct.
Every key location was set up and angled in a way so that when the player reached a destination and either turned around or arrived, they saw a new point of interest, creating a game loop of looping around things and always having something to catch their attention.
This was Inspired by Breath of the Wild’s world Design Philosophy with the use of Hill’s and other focal points to prompt traveling to one place, and then finding something new to keep them constantly exploring.
While working with a simple player kit, I ensured that no matter what, no two platforming challenges were completely the same. I aimed to make nothing feel repetitive, and if something repeats, it’s an evolution of something that came before it:
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To balance everything out, I used a technique known as onion layering with open-level design where the farther out the player went, the more involved and evolved the platforming challenges became.
Action Blocks 1 and 2:
The first collectible the player commonly attempts are a simple, climb up the fallen pillar to the right, as most players go right in video games, or the Rocky Mountains to the right.
These challenges were made to not require more than 10-15 seconds to collect, and no more than 3 to 4 jumps to complete compared to the other 3 collectibles which were spaced out farther and took more jumps and time to complete.
Their collectibles’ locations also ensured the player would turn around and see other collectables off in the distance at the more advanced action blocks.
Action Block 3:
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The player sees a cave entrance/exit on top of a mountain. They see a little bump with flowers on it that draws their eye as a potential way in.
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They may attempt to jump and fall to the area below and discover the cave entrance:
2. or follow the pathway to the left with stumps aligned as fun steppingstones that wrap around and find the cave entrance.
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The player then ascends a colorful crystal cave that spirals upwards to the cave mouth that originally drew them to the area.
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The player then can cross the rocky edges of the wall to reach their desired collectable where they must Jump to grab it, prompting them to grab the collectable and go to the next action block.
Ascending the cave
Exiting Cave
Action Block 4:
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For Action Block 4, I placed it in the middle along the way to Action Block 5, so that the route to that action block would have activity and rewards for the player and not bore them. Along the way, I placed 4 stumps so the player could have a fun little moment along their journey, to keep them active and engaged if they wanted to.
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I set it up in the logic of short, medium, and long-term goals. The player can always see these 4 things that draw their interest in a set order:
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Short term goal 1: stumps to jump along in a zig zag pattern.
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Short term goal 2: What looks like a climbable structure to the right with a hill leading up to it.
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Middle term goal: A strange Hill in the middle.
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Long term goal: A well at the top of the hill that the player must clear other challenges to reach.
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When the player reaches the Second Short term goal, the strange structure, they can go the full loop of ruins to climb, or, if skilled, can skip it to reach their reward: which was hidden behind the Middle term goal, the hill.
skilled skip
Action Block 5:
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For Action Block 5, I placed it within the well that drew people’s attention. The player from Collectible 4 can see the Well, along with a cave mouth.
To discover the entrance, I put rocks aligned in a way that prompts the player to jump into the well.
Building off of what was found in a previous Action Block, it's within a cave, but, a much larger cave that builds off of previous patterns from cave 1. I used the same color scheme, and idea of loops that spiral upward with a collectible at the very and a route outwards so the player can exit.
Cross a gap!!
Climb up!
You're reward is at the top!
By the end, I created a fun sandbox environment that could be cleared in any order the player so decided to, by using a variety of techniques such as looping patterns, focal points, and careful spatial awareness. As the first test for the game and what we were going for, I feel I succeeded.