The idea itself, much like the idea I created for my honours project, takes inspiration from the TV show 'LOST'. However it takes a specific section of the show, which I thought would work well as a level.
If any of you reading this have seen the show, my level takes inspiration from 'The Hatch' which for those who havent seen the show, is a place where one person has to press a button every 108 minutes, without knowing what will happen if the button is not pressed.
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| Scene from the show 'Lost' When then find 'The Hatch' |
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| The timer that counts down ever 108 minutes |
The idea for my level is based on this button press, I want to see if the player will realise that they will have to keep pressing the button, and if they dont then they will fail.
I learnt from my previous testing at the start of the year, that the player will always press a button if they're faced with one to press. (see 'The Help Test' for this information) With this information I have made the level heavily reliant on this button press, meaning the player will always have to come back to the main area of the level to reset a timer or they will fail.
The button press is just one of many mechanics which I will explain during the development of this level, but first how am I going to teach the player how to press this button? how will they now to keep pressing it? or how am I going to guide the player through the level?
The answer to the first one is simple, as explained about the player will press a button if they are faced with one, but just to add more temptation the room it is in will be dark, alarm lights will be on, and a single spot light will be shining down on a computer. When the player investigates the computer, the screen will be on and displaying 'E:/' this will be a subtle suggestion to press E to use the computer. The 'Button' will be a key code input on the computer and the code will be displayed within the level for the player to find. Once the code is used, the facility they are in will return to normal.
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| Screen Example. |
A strong indication that they player will need to press the button again will only happen after about 3 minutes of them playing the level. As with the start of the level, once the lights go out the alarm will sound and alarm lights will appear. This shows that a similar thing is happening to what was happening before they entered the code...so maybe they should run back to the centre to check? this is the feeling I hope the player will get when playing the game.
Next is the guidance system. The layout of the level I have tried to make intentionally confusing, as i want the player to learn the way around it themselves. However, there will be reference points for the player to use, and to help them with this within the main computer room a map will be displayed. When the player enters the code on the computer and the lights turn back on, the map will then dissappear, indicating when the lights are off it will be visible again.
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| Rough Scrible of the painted version of the map that will be on the wall. |
Aswell as the map being there for them to see when they first enter the main room, should the alarm sound when they have ventured out of this area (which it most likely will) there will be lights that will move down the hall ways the player is in, which will lead them back to the centre room.
This guidance system will be in place from the start of the level as during a small tutorial hallway which is just a straight hallway with only one way, forward, the lights will be moving down it hopefully getting it into the players head that they will help guide the way.
The reason I wanted to show the guidance, temptation to press the button and the map being visible from the get go, was because I recently watched a video about a game called 'Megaman X' which showed me a brilliant tutorial level without any pop up tutorials being shown!
----> link be here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM
It made me realise I would need to teach the player all the main mechanics of the game, before they even get to properly playing.
Below are the level designs I created for the game.
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| The Original Design for the level |
As you can see this first design has a rather confusing layout with hallways all over the place.
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| Updated and Final Version. |
However due to issues when Blocking out the level I decided to change it a little to have more straight corridors, but to still keep the confusing nature of it I added some stairwells to raise and lower the environment.
In the next post I will discuss a walkthrough of the level, along with other mechanics created with the knowledge of the original tests, such as 'The Symbol Test'.
Laters Taters! =P
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