Temple of Light (5-11 May)

I started the last week by sketching a new version of the wind level. The reason for this was that rather than having “randomly” placed pillars around a big room which all looked the same I wanted to give the player some diversity while playing the map. In the new level the player now has the possibility to explore even more as they now have the possibility to walk through different pillars. Also, the new level has received a total makeover with a theme of a small “city”. The new version of the level feels much more alive than the earlier version of it. By also adding small assets the player constantly has something new to see with the living environment surrounding him/her. As usual I have also been fixing minor flaws in the other levels. There are places where the mirrors for example have had to be moved so that the game is no longer broken. It seems though as we might not use the darkness level and the treasure chamber due to the lack of time. This is not necessarily a bad thing as this gives us a bigger chance to make the three other levels look outstanding.

 

There was also some ideas of creating an extra level for the game which would implement all the different features from the different levels. I personally do not think this is a good idea as we do not have the time in my opinion. All though, I started sketching on this level and started to model it in UE4 but for some reason I am not quite happy about how it is turning out. We will have to see what happens with it. Maybe it can be used after GGC if the group keeps working on this project.

 

I also started writing on the post mortem. I have not gotten that far yet but have managed to get together a template. The introduction is nearly completed as well as the method. Further work will have to be done on the paper the coming weeks.

Temple of Light (28 April-4 May)

Last week I spent most of my time trying to implement light into the levels. The biggest problem I had was to get a cozy atmosphere in the levels but still make it playable and not to dark. The reason this was so hard was because our temple is positioned inside/under a mountain. An easy way to get the right type of light would have been to have windows for example which would let me use the light from the sun, but this was not an option. As the different levels are positioned inside a mountain I had to use holes in the roof for example instead. This did not give the best effect as the holes don’t light up as much as I wanted. Instead I had to use “fake” light by positioning point lights with low intensity around the levels. A challenge which I faced quite early was that I could not use the same type of light for the different levels as they vary in size and have very different themes. Also, overall all the levels feel rather dark at the moment so that is something I’ll have to look at in the coming weeks. Maybe there will be other effects in the lighting when the correct meshes and textures have been inserted into the game.

 

Water Level

As the Water level is the smallest map in the game it was quite easy to get a nice light in the room. What I did was that I added a point light in the middle of the room which covered a huge area. This point light has a rather high intensity which lights up the whole room. On the walls surrounding the puzzle a couple of torches were inserted. These torches removed some of the shadows and even gave the room a more living type of light.

 

Wind Level

This level was quite hard to light up as it is so huge. Whenever I inserted lights around the map shadows appeared which made it next to impossible to play the level. A reason for this is probably that there are a lot of different height differences throughout the room. One way to fix this is to either have different point lights around the room which light up different parts or inserting a very low intensity global illumination. At the moment I have used the point light option but will have to look over it again after we have inserted the final meshes.

 

Fire Level

As there are a lot of moving objects in this level the lighting changes whenever you do something. This has a huge risk on the overall feeling of the room and has to be fixed using dynamic lightning. The positive part of this level though is that it is not very big which means that I can use less light sources. To get the ambient feeling of a level of fire torches were the obvious choice of lightning. Also, the fire traps that are introduced to the player in this level play a very important part as they will turn on and off which will light up and darken the level.

 

Darkness Level

The main challenge of this level is the darkness surrounding the player as the name of the level says. The higher up the player moves it gets lighter. In Unreal Engine 4 there is a default option of eye adjustment. What it does is that over time the players screen gets lighter and it gets easier to see the surrounding environment. Although it is a very interesting effect it breaks this specific level. The way to fix this is by using a post processing tool which exists in the engine. The room will have to be divided into three different levels of post processing where the eye adaptation has no effect at all at the bottom but gradually increases the higher the player gets. For this level it seems that point lights won’t work as well either as they light up to much of the level. Also, the light produced by a point light feels completely wrong. Instead I decided to use a variant of the torch which looks like a brazier. What it does is that it lights up the specific areas where the player can move but does not light up the traps and pitfalls in the level.

 

Corridors

The corridors throughout the game are completely closed and there is no natural light which can enter. The best way to light up these areas was by adding torches. The biggest problem here was that when I added the different torches the FPS went down a lot. The option here was to change out the dynamic fire for static point lights. This gave the corridors enough light so that the player can easily find the way but also seems as the torches are actually burning.

Temple of Light (21-27 april)

Last week I worked on the levels in Unreal Engine 4. It has worked quite well but it feels as there are a lot of things to learn in the program. Also, as it is quite new there are a lot of bugs and the program really enjoys crashing. This has done so that I have lost a lot of work and have had to redo it a couple of times.

 

I am quite satisfied by how the levels are turning out. All the levels are complete and work well so far. There have been a couple of minor changes from the sketches from last week which has helped the game from “breaking”. On the other side, as the graphic style has been changed as it was “offensive” I have had to replace all the mirrors in the game two times. It is really too bad as it feels as I could have used the time it took fixing these errors to make the rest of the levels more interesting and feel more tidy.

 

The overall difficulty is quite high though in the game, and it takes quite a lot of time for most players to complete them. There are exceptions where for example real puzzle-gamers play. These people have a tendency to figure out the puzzles quite fast as if you just explore a little it is quite easy to understand how the different levels work.

 

The main mechanic in the game are obviously the mirrors and the light. The main challenge though are the actual rooms as they are created in such a way to confuse the players and really make them think. There is always a clue to where the player has to go which is visible when activated. These clues help to guide the player but they do not complete the challenge. Probably I’ll have to iterate a lot on the levels as there will come comments from people who test the game. The chances are though that I’ll keep them almost the same as long as they don’t get worse.

Below are some screenshots from the progress of the levels. Enjoy!

Outside lit & unlit

Central Chamber lit & unlit

Treasure Chamber lit & unlit

Water level lit & unlit

Wind level lit & unlit

Fire level lit & unlit

Darkness level lit & unlit

Temple of Light (Big Game Project)

For the last 3 weeks I have been working on a game called Temple of Light with a group called Parehelion Entertainments for the course Big Game Project. The game is a First Person Puzzle where the player uses mirrors to move light and reach crystals to complete different challenges. My role in this project is level design and I have been working on four different levels as well as a zone where the player starts, a tutorial level, a central hub and a Treasure Chamber where the game ends. Below are the four levels where the player will spend most of the time in the game as well as a guide to what the different symbols mean.

The first level is the water level where the player has to move different mirrors to activate two ray receivers. When the two ray receivers have been activated two non-movable mirrors are activated which lets the player move the light so it can hit the crystal. As soon as the crystal has been activated water will start pouring down different openings found around the level. When this level has been completed as well the fountain in the central hub is activated.

The second level is the wind level. In this level the player will learn that he/she can jump as the main objective is to jump between different platforms so that different mirrors can be moved. Another thing the player will learn is that you can die in the game. If you die though, the only thing that happens is that you are moved to the entrance of the level. This level is by far the biggest one of the four which creates a big, open, environment which fits well with the wind attributes of the game. It also starts big fans in the room which cleans out the sand and moves clothes in the central hub.

The third level is the fire level. In this level the player will have to use his/her brain to complete the challenge. This level also introduces the player to traps, movable walls and leavers. By pulling different leavers in the correct order different walls will react in different ways. The player will have to try out to move mirrors and try to understand how they will act in different height’s. The traps on the other hand are used to make it harder for the player to move around the level. The way they work is by being activated for a period of time and then shutting down, after this they are activated again. If the player would be caught inside one of these fire traps he/she dies. If the player can manage to complete this puzzle torches light up in the central hub.

The fourth and last level uses the different challenges found throughout the last three levels. To make this level even harder huge parts of the level are completely dark making it hard to see where to go. The only light available is the level is light from the torches, the fire traps and the light emitted from the light ray. If the player completes this challenge a door will open in the central hub giving the player access to the Treasure Chamber.

After these sketches were complete I have been working in Unreal Engine 4. In this program I have created the different levels which are now fully playable. In the coming weeks I will finish the levels by giving them walls and adding assets created by the 3D artists from the group. Further information on how the levels are working out will come in the next blog post.