Behind the level: Competurn

[selmitto]

This post is a copy of an article I wrote in my blog at http://blog.anselmo.gd/?p=789. It's mirroed here so you guys can read it without leaving this home

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This was one of the maps that I designed to compete in a challenge held by the MapCore community, The Perpetual Testing Challenge. As a restraint of it, the level was built entirely in PeTI (I didn’t use the Hammer Editor). Check my portfolio anselmo.gd/competurn

My Goal

When I first opened PeTI, I intended to design a level “on the fly”. I didn’t use any pre-planning for Competurn: I just wanted to see how the simplified editor could stimulate and help a designer’s creation and with what depth I’d be able to play with ideas. I just allowed the level to flow naturally. While designing it, I could think in a concept and prototype it right away. This iterative approach made me able to implement and combine variations of interesting ideas that stuck in my mind after I played the full game Portal 2. However, I still kept in mind important things like how the player would move around the environment and how the puzzles were configured.

Gameplay and Design Decisions

I decided to create an environment that would converge the action of the level, so that various puzzles could be integrated into a fairly small space. In it, during the puzzle-solving, the player would revisit places he had been before – during the solution of a previous puzzle. All of it resulted in a hub-style room for the gameplay.

Level Flow

Al anselmo | Competurn, Level Flow map (Portal2)

With this kind of layout, Competurn offers multiple puzzles with a challenge that rewards the learning curve of the player: the same base mechanic is used at different times during the progression in the level, but with different purposes. For example, early in the level, the player has to play with the Propulsion Gel (speed gel) to create a speed corridor and fling himself to press a distant pedestal button; later, the same fling is required to help transpose a cube to complete another puzzle. In the last steps, the player reuses what he had learned in the first actions, adding new layers of challenge and short-term goals to be beaten each time.

Aesthetics

In the challenge, it wasn’t allowed to detail the map with props and new textures. So, I tried to create some interesting aesthetics with the few elements provided in PeTI. For this, I created an effect to be seen right at the beginning of the player’s flow, when he is walking into the center of the test chamber: I combined Turrets and a Franken Turret (the defective one) to make the latter move toward them and bump them, making the Turrets fall and get destroyed. This eye candy effect created some special effects with the falling Turrets shooting as they died, giving a feeling in the player’s mind that somehow the environment was fighting itself.

The Falling Edgeless Safety Cube

The first and simple puzzle asks the player to grab a ball and activates a switch, which as an output will activate a Propulsion Gel Dropper. But how would I properly lead the player to his first action, leading the player to the correct flow? The way I placed the falling ball (or as it’s called in the game, “edgeless safety cube (!)”) was very important design-wise.

• • Since the very moment the level starts, the ball is dropped by a dropper hidden in the ceiling, making the fall of the ball a curious detail.

• • Only the dropper itself is hidden from the player’s view.

• • The ball falls in an angle that makes it hits two surfaces, resulting in different audio feedbacks. There’s a small area of floor surrounded by a pool of

deadly goo:

• • • Floor: when the ball hits the floor, it makes a distinct noise. For the player, this is the first signal that something gameplay-related is happening in the level. This small area of floor is important in Competurn because it is where the player will have to shoot a portal to make the ball fly through, catch it, and use it to progress on the first puzzle.
    
    • • Deadly Goo: the previous sound effect of the ball bouncing on the floor is then amplified by the “SPLASH!” noise that is resulted by the object falling in the pool of deadly goo. When it hits the deadly goo, the ball is destroyed and a new one is dropped, restarting this falling ball loop.
      

• • Both of these sound effects combined by a sudden appearance of the ball work to attract the player’s attention: as the player enters the level, he walks through a hallway and the only direction that he can continue walking is to the right. When he does it, his attention is attracted by the falling ball.

Flying through the turrets

The main objective is to reach the exit, open and walk through it. But, the exit is placed on the first floor in the environment, and the player cannot go there so easily. I wanted to make sure that this experience would be exciting, remarkable and would involve some action. The player will have to solve a series of puzzles that as a result will catapult him right on the top:

1. 1. Covers the floor with the Propulsion Gel and walks on it, increasing his running speed.

• 2. Propels himself upwards, on a specific area in the level, to reach a pedestal button.

• 3. While on air, activates the pedestal button that is standing upside down on the ceiling. The player has a really short time to perform the actions 2 and 3 before falling down through the portal he used to propel himself and loses the interaction distance with the pedestal button.

• 4. As a result of the activation, an angled panel will show up on the wall. The panel will remain angled for some seconds before it goes back to its normal (and flat) state and the player be forced to return to step 2. Because of the level flow, I made sure that the angled panel would be visible when the player returned from the previous momentum (2). This would directly indicate its importance for the player.

• 5. Shoots a portal on the angled panel and the other portal on a wall below it, runs through it and… FLIES!

This is where the experience I mentioned takes place. When the player flies through the angled panel, he will land on a faith plate which will fling him across the level right on another http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uIftsxkuUA, and then, it will make the player fly through many killer turretsthat are suspended in a small chamber on the roof, landing right in front of the exit. This has an interesting effect because it all happens really fast and the turrets will give the illusion that they would attack the player as they play the sound of “target acquired!“.

This was designed only for the fun and the effect it could cause. It’s not designed to present a challenge for the player or for the turrets to kill him. In fact, because of the player feedback that I received telling that the turrets were annoying, as also because in PeTI it’s not possible to tweak precisely some aspects (e.g. the angle of view of turrets aim and shoot), I had to make them really harmless.

Player Feedback

Playtesting is, by far, the most important part of any development. It really doesn’t matter if you have the best concept, or if your mechanic is really innovative. It won’t be fun and it won’t exceed the player’s expectations if not enough playtesting is done. The many feedbacks I received from the players via the Steam Workshop was insanely great. It’s magic how distinct their playstyle can be from ours and how many ways they find to exploit and break our maps, isn’t it? I love it! I love when they demonstrate so much engagement that they report what they think/ feel/ find with text, images and videos. This helped me a lot, and I have to thank everyone who could share theirthoughts and comments on my map. This is the reason why Competurn is (currently, as I write this) on its 1.6 version. Improving your map based on solid player feedback is the best thing we can do. I have to thank VALVe for creating a platform where we get even closer to our players.

Several different ways of solving the puzzles were discovered by the players. Some were cut out for being exploits. Others were kept because they weren’t a big deal and I wanted to reward players with creative solutions, as also because they required a lot of skill to be performed.

In the End

In addition to the relevant experience that I acquired in the process of putting my hands in the design tool, design a level and iterate it based on real player feedbacks, I had a lot of fun! I’ll continue using PeTI to prototype puzzle ideas, but I’ll then iterate them in Hammer.

Now that you know it better, play Competurn, and have fun you too!