Design of War Ender - Level 4-1 And 4-2
Red's journey is coming to a close...
Infinite Level game discussed: War Ender
Back when my website was just about War Ender, I started doing a series of dev blogs detailing each of War Ender's levels and explaining the design choices I made with each level. Obviously, given the last few months have been about highlighting The Future Project, that series has taken a bit of a backseat. Currently, I have no major updates or insights to share concerning The Future Project, so we'll take a little break from that game and talk about my first release. Before we get too into this however, I should mention that this is continuing a series I started a long time ago. If you want to get caught up before or after reading this, please check out The Old Blog. You'll find all the previous War Ender blogs there, including the Design of War Ender series.
To recap what happened in the last level in particular, the player would have just defeated the third boss of the game, the Cyborg Soldier. He was an experimental, robotically enhanced human meant to match the abilities of Red, the main character. However, the fact that we're here proves that Red is still The City's superior fighter. After defeating this boss, the player is back outside on the rooftops, with the Outsider base in sight. Now, at this stage of the game, the player isn't going to encounter much in the way of new stuff anymore. The rest of the game is all about taking everything the player has seen in the game alongside their own knowledge, and exploring all the different platforming and combat scenarios available within those systems. 4-1's beginning is a good showcase of this idea, placing mines on platforms in such a way that the player simply has to destroy a couple to get through unharmed. Past that, some enemies need taking care of, including a homing bullet enemy that gets a slightly better introduction here than in 3-3. It's still muddied by everything else going on, but at least here you'll likely see the blue bullet moving to your position and pick up on what's going on.
It doesn't take too long to get through the first part of 4-1. It's mostly combat with a touch of platforming at the very end using the moving platforms and jumppad seen earlier in the game. Right after that, a similar wave of enemies appear, although you'll need to keep an eye on the flying enemies in particular. A helicopter is placed in the air, which prevents the player from shoot-floating past everything. Additionally, the moving platforms here are getting a little more strict with their gaps, requiring that players know when and where to jump, and perhaps even shoot-float if you've miscalculated the jump a bit. After this, the second section of the game is complete. Third section plays out similarly to the second, with a gradual descent downward before having to platform across a gap to progress. Here, more Obsessors are placed to discourage shoot-floating past everything again, and mines and torches are littered along the floor along with the enemies. Yet again, I'm asking the player to be mindful of their positioning when they land on the ground or perform a dodge. One area of this section I kind of like is right before the next checkpoint, where the player must use the destructible platforms to cross...but then run into a helicopter. You can either turn back and lure the helicopter in and destroy it, or risk a hit or two and run past it in order to not run out of time on the destructible platforms. I'd be curious to know how many players chose one option over the other.
The final section is probably the best part of the level. The layout in particular has the player dodging past torches onto destructible floors, all with the threat of Obsessors hanging above them if they didn't destroy them first. But on the other side of this destructible platform bridge is another torch, so they have to dodge, wait for the dodge ability to reload, then dodge again. They'll be doing this twice before reaching the very last stretch of the level. Players will possibly notice the frequent use of dodging in this level, between the helicopters, pyros, mines, and torches placed everywhere. It's an important tool for survival, and the level should reinforce that whenever it can. Here, we're changing things up a bit because players usually have that moment of quiet after a dodge. Not so in this instance. They have to already be prepping their next dodge in order to pass the torch, and potential projectiles, and get away from the floor crumbling beneath them. To finish things off, we do a sort of remix of the beginning by placing platforms with mines on them, encouraging the player to destroy those to progress. There aren't as many mines though, but in their place are a couple rocket turrets. Evade these, make the final jumps to the top, and 4-1 is completed.
Level 4-2 is similar to 4-1, which is why I'm lumping them together in this blog entry. It's another level whose major purpose is to remix all the game elements available within War Ender. But first, an encouragement from the game to keep going. War Ender is meant to be a difficult game in order to give you the feeling of conquering the world by the end of the adventure. Having a ton of enemies before you, large gaps, and many near death experiences is all in service of exercising those nimble fingers and witty mind of yours to become, like the main character, The City's greatest fighter. What's interesting about 4-2's opening story bit is that it doesn't really give you any story at all. It just reads “Keep going! You're almost there!” Yes, the game's hard, but it wants you to be the victor at the end of the day. This is the same reasoning behind the various messages given to you when restarting after death. Don't let defeat wear you down. Pick yourself up and show those enemies who's boss! And with that mindset in place, we can begin talking about level 4-2 proper.
Contrasting 4-1, 4-2 first asks to do a little platforming before giving you enemies. And even then, there's not nearly as many enemies as in 4-1. By the time you're warmed up, you're already platforming again, this time with three moving platforms and a moving jumppad laid out vertically, which I believe is a first for the game. I ask that the player time their jumps carefully here, because these platforms move away from each other. You'll almost certainly be using the shoot-float ability here (though you can score some bragging rights if you don't). The second section throws you into more of the combat you've been trained for, with obstacles and enemies scattering the building. Before you can leave and claim another checkpoint though, you'll have to remove some enemies blocking a platform while contending with the disappearing platforms you're using to accomplish said task. Thankfully, anticipating that this section would be rather challenging, I've kept the floor in place for you. So if you fall, you'll at least be able to restart the challenge without severe punishment. Hey, I've got to cut the player some slack now and again. Can't be white knuckle all the time, that would get exhausting. However, shortly after that, I begin to make liberal use of the destructible platforms to keep the remainder of the level tense.
Atop the red building, the player is primarily faced with enemies. It's once again just another opportunity to throw enemies at you in both new and familiar ways. However, the ending of this section is kind of interesting. To get to the next checkpoint, the player must dodge past a torch, across a gap, and onto the next building. The trick is to simply position yourself properly, then hold run as you dodge to make it the rest of the way across. Of course, a quick shoot-float can also assure safe passage. It's not only a neat little moment in the overall level design, but a helpful teaching moment too. Use your run speed along with dodges to get past certain obstacles easier. Though, by this point, the player was probably doing that already. To finish things off, we traverse across some destructible floors with a cloud of Obsessors moving down onto the player. This is perhaps one of the more obvious remixes occurring, with it reminding me personally of a moment in level 3-1. After that, take care of a few more enemies, than use the diagonally moving jumppads to get to the end and reach the Outsider base. Now the player must brace themselves, for the toughest challenge in War Ender yet is on its way.
A few additional notes about these levels before we wrap up. First, 4-1 has a Steam achievement tied to it. Get through the level in eighty seconds or less, and the achievement is yours. There's a handful of other achievements like this, one for each chapter in fact. This one is certainly the hardest, but skilled players will be able to pull it off. In making those achievements, I always made it a point to allow some room for error, so don't feel like you have to play flawlessly to get it done. As for the health packs, I believe these levels are among the only ones where health packs are placed for both those destroying checkpoints and those who are not. Many of the health packs in the game are, admittedly, placed with no checkpoint runs in mind, so having a few levels where all kinds of players will benefit greatly from them is nice. And with that, that's these levels done and out of the way. Each level's point is a simple one – remix everything in the game so far to present new challenges. The rest of the game is like this as well, though there will still be a few twists and turns along the way. And there's no finer twists in War Ender than what comes up next. Red is inside the Outsider base, a huge place teeming with enemies. It will no doubt be a difficult level to overcome, but the player is prepared for it now.
Until next time!
-Lance T.