“Ever wondered what it looks like to leave the palace?”
It's quite beautiful, and scary, and terrifying, and there are lots of traps...
and where was I going with this?
Wait I know...
How about we let the developers talk about it instead in our next mini-dev dive!
Because, in the end, this earlier mentioned quote was exactly the question that led us to the mysterious Mount Qaf we have today.
And yes, that’s right, it’s that time again, but this time we asked our devs about world building and the different biomes of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.
To Create a World
But before we start, how could we consider it a dev dive without a video to watch?
Well, in this case there are two!
So, let’s start with, “To Create a World.”
Our devs of course played all of the other major Prince of Persia titles and they wanted this one to go beyond the palace, to show other types of biomes, outside of palace structures. In their eyes, the Hyrcanian Forest and the Raging Sea deserve to be known and explored.
The previous Prince of Persia games were set in the timelines closer to the ninth century. But this one takes place waaaay before that. They wanted it to be more ancient, more mythological.
Mount Qaf, being a mythological place in ancient Persia, generated a lot of inspiration. So, when designing Mount Qaf, it was never about any historical or scientific accuracy, but about capturing the essence of the Persian legacy, the stories, and the feeling and emotion you get from them.
With that, the devs really wanted to build a bridge and let the references of mythological Persia be seen through the lens of fantasy.
To Illustrate a Story
We’ve talked about the world itself, but what about the artistic direction and scenography?
Well, onto the next video the next video I say.
Narrative information that can be delivered visually is the best way to fully tell a story according to our team. And in a 2.5D semi-open world game it’s easier to know exactly what will be in the frame for the player at a given time. This means that they can design visual cues to be the guide. Remember the statues that are frozen in their fall when you first enter the Citadel. They are meant to immediately convey that something is off.
The team’s starting point when creating the biomes was the game’s narrative. It was important to our level and world designers to not only make good systems but also to tell stories through their environments.
This means answering all kind of questions such as: how do we build up the pressure to lead to the next scene? Can we throw a clue in there as to what is coming next? Do we make the ground shake just before encountering a boss?
The devs took all of this and more into consideration when building the biomes and the world, because for them it was important to feel the story through gameplay, not just through the cinematics.
Well, that is it for this mini-dev dive!
See you in the next one,
Your Prince of Persia Community Team