Hi everyone! Welcome to another weekly dev blog. Last week we talked about Sickle, the editor we use to make levels for Dandelion Void. We actually had so much fun talking about the tool that we ran out of time to discuss what we were making with it. So today, let’s talk level design!
As with last week, please know that the content shown in this post is very WIP. Level design is one of the most iterative gamedev disciplines, and we would be surprised if even a single room pictured below makes it into the final game. This post is about the journey, not the destination!
Sandboxing vs Progression
Designing maps for survival-crafting games is a balancing act. The sandbox aspect of the genre means that your levels can't be fully linear; players want a sense of exploration! They want to pick a direction, walk until they find something cool, and feel the satisfaction of discovering the world themselves. Do anything, go anywhere!
But at the same time, the survival-crafting genre is also very progression based! Part of the fantasy is starting off with just the shirt on your back, then clawing your way up to more and more powerful gear from more and more dangerous environments. This implies at least some amount of linearity; from low to high tool tiers, or from early-game to late-game areas.
Different games exist at different locations on the spectrum: some lean sandbox (Minecraft, Project Zomboid, etc.) while others lean more on the progression (Subnautica, Valheim, etc.) gameplay. But whether your maps are made by hand or generated procedurally, It is up to the developer to find a harmony between both of these aspects.
This brings us to Dandelion Void! We recently conducted an internal playtest with some game industry colleagues. What we found was that our friends had a great time early on as they struggled to survive their first few nights. But once they built a safe room and built up a supply of food and water, they felt a sense of not knowing what was next. Part of the issue was that the test level they played was extremely circuitous and open-ended. There were different regions to discover, but players didn’t know how to find the paths between regions, or how to understand what was an “early game” versus a “late game” area.
Some of this can be fixed simply with game balance and more content. We can tweak the survival mechanics to make it harder to stabilize, and harder still to keep that stability. And as we add new furniture, tilesets, and hazards, we can increase the average differentiation between any two given areas. With that said, we wanted to experiment with what a level design based solution could look like!
Doubles and Halves
Sid Meier of the Civilization series has a famous motto on game balance: “double it, or cut it in half.” Rather than tweaking something 5% here and 5% there, you get the most information as a designer when you make large, sweeping changes, even if they end up being an overcorrection. If your combat is feeling too easy, bumping enemy damage from 5 to 6 won’t feel very different. Try it at 10, and go down from there!
When we found that our test level lacked a sense of progression, we made a new one which represents the other extreme. “Pergovania” is a hub-and-spoke map divided into small, discrete areas that can only be accessed by obtaining a tool from the previous area. Four areas – the safe closets, the administrative offices, the plumbing corridors, and the pollen farm, are connected by a central reactor pool. In order to get into the admin offices, you’ll need a bludgeon from the reactor pool to break down a broken door. Meanwhile, the hallway to the plumbing corridors has lost power and requires a backup battery which you can find and charge in the admin offices. As you’ve probably guessed, this test map is inspired by the lock and key mechanics characteristic of the Metroidvania genre.
We start with an extremely rough sketch
And throw it into Sickle
From a design perspective, we expect Pergovania to be an overcorrection. Our current vision for Dandelion Void is more on the open-ended side of the spectrum, whereas Pergovania is highly linear. But we have a lot of questions for which we expect this level to provide insight:
How compelling are the different tools to use? How can we artistically distinguish a dangerous late game area from a safer early game one? Will players chafe at the enforced progression, or will they enjoy the momentum it gives their gameplay? What are the areas that they would have wanted to explore in more depth?
The rough sketch realized...
We can’t tell you the answers to these yet, because we still need to put our colleagues through another test! But we are very optimistic that by using an extreme test case, we will get the data we need to create a final map which satisfies all types of players.
Commence the Endgame
We hope this dive into our level design iteration philosophy has been interesting! We would love to hear from you all about your favorite survival game levels, and/or the aspects that you most value out of a game map. Until next time, give doubling a try for yourself – it’s twice the fun!