If you read the general game description you might remember that we mentioned it has seven locations in total. Here I am going to briefly introduce to you the third and final level from the first location which we call “The Forest”. Being the last one of the so called introductive stage of the game I want to make sure it turns out to be a memorable experience since I wish to have the player carrying this level and everything about it in his mind for the remaining of the game and constantly remember it as the starting point of Rinni’s adventure.
On the emotional layer the level is marked by the first and probably the most violent and shocking twist our game story has – basically it’s the catalyst of the entire flow of events that follow. It’s also the moment the main character instantly takes shape, matures and becomes distinctive enough to separate him from all the rest of the Giblits. He loses all connections he previously had with his people as he is forced to make some very hard decisions and this accelerated transfer from childhood to adulthood leave our tiny hero a bit scarred and confused. So as you can see there is this huge baggage of emotional information that needs to fit in just one level without making it feel flooded and that’s certainly not easy.
When stripping everything down to core level design you’ll find a four pieces structure. The first one seems to be more like a tutorial because it focuses on introducing some newly obtained abilities from the previous levels and helping the player get the hang of using them. Although short this stage is pretty important since the lesson taught here will be repeated in several other forms throughout the game – so we must make sure we have the player’s undivided attention by keeping the LD simple and focused, but not too simple because having fun is of the essence. The second part is an Element based puzzle, the first of his kind actually, and it’s a bit harder than most would expect, but we decided to keep the overall difficulty level of the game pretty high up so this puzzle is no exception. It’s based on just two Elements because after all it’s just the begging of the game and the number of Elements introduced this far is limited. Nevertheless being the first of its kind, finding the correct “cipher” of this puzzle will probably take a few minutes even to experienced players. It’s followed by a fast paced jump and run section to rebalance a bit the fun sources of the game which are the puzzles on one side, one of which I’ve just mentioned, and on the other side the original platformer actions we are all, I presume, accustomed with, such as running, jumping, climbing, grabbing, swinging and so on. This part-brain-part-brawl recipe is the one we will apply in most cases when building the levels for this game.
The Forest ends with the first boss fight of Rinni and The Elements of Xi of which I am not going to tell you anything at all because I want it to be a surprise when you’ll play the game.
That pretty much sums it up, but if you still want more please check the Image section of the game site for more colorful information and keep an eye out for the following weeks’ updates because depending on what our Lead Graphic Artist wishes you to see you may get a sneak and peek at this level’s good looks.
Tags: game design, level design, rinni, the forest setting