Hey there everyone! We’re hard at work with university, life, and of course, development! This month will be a shorter post from yours truly, I hope you enjoy!
Jibrill
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Hey hey folks! J-rock coming at you with another month of fun-filled level creation! This month: the end of the end, and the beginning of the… middle of the… end? This month I worked on building our ending sequence, designed level 2, and then started building it!
Into The Pastel Sky
First things first: the end of the end! Hehe. I’ve already shown the bulk of the ending sequence back in March, but I’ve done a little tweaking to get it all up and running, so I thought I’d slide in some pictures for everyone to enjoy!
A sequence of short memories for players to walk through
As The World Begins to Wane
Next up I started designing our most cerebral level yet, level 2! Using the excellent narrative backing from Ronjamin Rotten, I was able to whip up a cool array of weird and trippy spaces for players to poke around in. This level is based around the fact that something big is about to change, and there’s no going back to how things were after it does. I’ve tried to include many areas in the game where you have to backtrack to progress, but every time you do the place you end up in is not the same one you left. It’s different, and the old one is gone, forever out of reach.
A closet leading to 3 twisty hallwals
Some initial scrawlings for the repeating spaces used in level 2
A quick sketch for the warehouse section of level 2
Some scrawlings for the tower section of level 2
The level is structured around a small closet that acts as a sort of hub area. Within the closet, players will find two coat hooks, with a void filling the space where a bright yellow coat should be. After clearing some laundry piles from in front of a door the player will be able to venture through one of three hallways to reach the first spoke of our level. Here’s a little look behind the game dev curtain: it doesn’t actually matter which hallway players choose here, they’ll always reveal the different spokes of the level in a specific order. That way we can let players have some choice in how they navigate, while making sure our different areas escalate in weirdness and intensity.
A little courtyard at the start of spoke 1
One of the infinitely looping hallways. It’s much easier to get the effect with our top down camera!
A door at the base of a taaaaaall chamber… don’t look up!
The first area is focused on the idea that there’s no going back, no matter how much you may try. The second is about the idea that even when surrounded by people, no one really knows or cares about what’s happening. The third and final spoke is about grappling with the fact that what you’re about to lose is going to be gone forever. That something huge is going to disappear.
The beginnings of a small set piece in our second spoke.
The focus of the final spoke is the TOWER!
Spell Of Absurdity
And that’s all folks! There’s a little more to discover in this level, but we’ll dive into that as we move into tweaking and changing it as we do some testing. Next month: more level mayhem, and perhaps some more office organisation…. We’ll see…
Thanks again folks, I hope you’re all enjoying reading this as much as I’m enjoying writing it!
Jibrill
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