Designing a Level In God of War (Part 2)

Building a Level

Levels are blocked out in basic shapes and spacing by the level designers. Anything built can be sent over to the team’s development kit -- be it the whole levels or pieces, to view a specific section of the level.

After the block-out and collisions are built, the level is now in a playable state. Environment artists can lay the assets down in the place of the blocks. The level in progress will then be iteratively tested with both block-out and any placeholder/completed assets.

Kratos’ model is also used to test and navigate around the level in development; Kratos' model is also used to measure the scale of level assets and height of walls by stacking one model above the other.

Deleted Levels

In God of War there are a variety of level types, including underwater and desert levels, but most center around the marvels of ancient Greek architecture.

There were also many partially-complete levels that were cut during production, due to time constraints such as the Colosseum, Rhodes Marketplace, Atlantis, Aegean Beach, The Aqueduct and Mount Etna. For instance, there was to be a level where Kratos flies a Pegasus, while escaping a Typhoon.

The developers also built many test levels such as a flight platform level to test the Icarus wings. In the original God of War, a prototype level was build to try out all of the the basic mechanics in-game -- including Kratos’ actions like running, walking, swimming, scaling ledges, fighting, climbing, rope swinging and wing flight. The level designers also built a river level to test Kratos’ movement walking across water and a snow level to demonstrate particle effects.

One major level that was cut would have been featured a large, vulture-like boss that guarded Pandora's Box. The level was built around a conveyor belt component that ran around a circle. There would be a Minotaur to defeat and a moving platform up above.

The vulture would be in the center of the stage guarding the box, with its eggs scattered about the level. Kratos must find and break the eggs, then use the infant vultures as bait to take down the vicious mother vulture.
Up Next: Best Boss Battles

Comments

Level Design in God of War (Part 1)

Becoming the God of War God of War is one of the most-critically acclaimed franchises to ever hit the Playstation market. In this pipeline deconstruction, I will refer to elements of the series as a whole. Dominus the main character in concept, needed to be summed up in a single word -- wrath . Covered in the ash of his wife and child, the character is a demigod who seeks revenge on the gods who betrayed him. Once the artists stripped away his armor and shield, the character’s true raw, animalistic side was exposed. Tall with upper-body musculature, covered in ashes and hunched over with his signature Blades of Chaos, Dominus was a force to be reckoned with. Dominus set the stage for the today’s Playstation mascot -- Kratos. Level Design Mood and exploration is a staple part of level design in God of War . Areas that are more open are also relatively barren; while many objects are placed around smaller areas like rooms. I think this encourages the player’s sense o...

Time Manipulation in Game Design

Time Manipulation in Games Introduction The gameplay mechanic that I wish I had come up with first, is Time Manipulation. This is includes the concept of time dilation and the reversal of time in games. Implementing the Manipulation of Time Time manipulation is a robust mechanic. It involves non-exploitable time manipulation, with the goal of being fast and smooth, while not computationally-taxing on memory or hardware resources. The best way to implement this mechanic can be seen in Braid - an indie platform and puzzle game, developed by Number None, Inc. In this game, the world state is recorded for every frame, where the data is stored and compressed. With the recorded frames, any changing entities are extracted and mixed into the final state, which can be manipulated or rewound by the player. The player’s position is recorded and other properties such as color and rotation are stored as an integer that can be reconstructed, along with time information taken fro...

Most Difficult Parts in Heavy Rain

Under Pressure In my experience, the most difficult button combination sequence in the game is when Norman Jayden must bring in a suspect for questioning, who goes by the name of Mad Jack. Jackson is said to have sold a used car to the Origami Killer and presumably has information on the killer identity or alias. When Jayden finds traces of human blood and orchid pollen, he tries to arrest Jack on the spot. He resists the arrest and goes to Kill Jayden — which he can if the player is not quick enough during the intense fight sequence. If Jayden survives the attack and beats Mad Jack, he concedes and Jayden proceeds with the arrest. It’s then Jayden’s nose begins to bleed, his eyes begin twitching and his hands start shaking uncontrollably in the middle of the arrest. To resist feeding his addiction to a drug called triptocaine, the player must hold down a series of buttons to stop his hands from shaking and the weakness from his symptoms of withdrawal. If the playe...

Prissy Little Chloe

Search This Blog