Overview

The game uses something we call “The Gravitization Engine”.  It is the main sorce of speed for the player. When used it essentially presses you to the ground. So you would use it downhill go gain speed but if used uphill you would lose speed. Also we have some pickups that grant you speed.

A similar level design process to this was used on all levels and I was involved in making every level in the game to some degree. The process could change depending on what needed to be done at that time and what levels was solid from the beginning. We were very organic in how we worked and talked a lot, so changes and iterations were planned all the time.

• Sketching/Paper Prototyping
• First White Box pass
• Second White Box pass (not same person who did first White Box pass)
• Decorating/Replacing white boxes/Lighting (usually both persons in some degree)
• Any number of iterations, gameplay and/or decoration (could be either person)
• Optimization Pass (usually me)

Detailed Information

The “Into the Woods” level is the level that really introduces the aliens to the player. “Into the Woods” is after a level with huge open areas so we wanted to make the forest level a bit claustrophobic and concentrated; for contrast, variation and pace purposes. This level was all about the feel of it and the aliens. It was important that the level did not feel hostile, but, it should feel uncanny in a way, like you don’t belong.

First I drew a lot of sketches on how I wanted the gameplay and beats of the level to be. I also made sure I knew how players would enter and exit the level, as the level was a part of a continuous long section with a lot of other streamed in levels.

After I was satisfied with sketching I went on to white boxing the level. I had left enough blank spaces on the sketches to test out some ideas in white boxing. I like to use the sketches and paper planning more as guidelines for the pace and major themes of the level and then test in editor what works and doesn’t on a micro level. I had some areas where I had fairly poor inspiration, so I just threw something together fast so I could test the whole level, later I would go back to those parts when I have had a bit of time to reflect on the level and gotten feedback from other members of the team.

During the white boxing phase I scripted a couple of level mechanics with C#; a gate opening if you swung on ropes and dangerous spinning propellers you had to deactivate. It was only prototype code so the programmers would have to go in and replace it later, but it was enough to test the level.

In some areas I made sure to do a more detailed white boxing, so the artists would get a grasp on how the level should look and feel. Also so they knew approximately how I would later decorate the level.

When the white boxing was finished I had a long meeting with me colleague Jonatan. I made a small iteration pass on some areas, than gave it over to him, so he could do a pass on the white boxing and get his thoughts in. I also had a meeting with some artists and talked about what assets was needed for the level and showed them the detailed white boxing.

After the white boxing phase the level was tested. Either in-house or, more preferably, from outside sources or both. I documented all feedback I got on every level. This usually took a bit of time, meanwhile I usually began working on another level. We wanted most level white boxed before going in for decoration and level art.

After all the testing and most assets for the level was nearly finished I went in and started to replace the white boxing with real assets. When I replaced the assets I took into account all the feedback I had gathered from testing. The biggest feedback points was that I had made the level too narrow, it was hard to navigate through it without crashing into something, as a result I made sure to widen the level when replacing the white boxing. After decorating I put in lights in the level, did some polishing and detail decoration.

Closer to the end when we had gotten a lot more testing feedback I went back to the level and did a fairly large pass on the level again. One of the level mechanics was removed from the game, so I had to replace some sections of the level. We felt like the aliens didn’t have enough presence in the game so I added a lot more aliens to the level and other minor changes. The last thing I did was an optimization pass on the level using a set of custom tools our programmers had developed, as well as made sure all lights was necessary and all white boxes was properly removed.