World of Storms

Insert electricity pun here.

Infinite Level game discussed: The Future Project

I'm still toiling away at my next major project, which means I am once again in a position where I don't have anything current to talk about. So, let's go back to the past again and look at my last game, The Future Project, and take a look at another world in the game. In fact, the only other world I've not gotten into in this dev blog is Tempest (other than the very last world which I'll refrain from talking about for now), the yellow tinted stormy world that houses the game's electricity elemental power. Last month I talked about Alien Remnant and how it came together, so this month it's only appropriate that I go over Alien Remnant's opposite. Have fun comparing and contrasting the two worlds, because the design philosophies backing each are quite different from each other.

First, a little background. Tempest is the sixth major world in the game, themed around electrical storms and obstacles with very little in the ways of enemies. What few enemies are roaming around however are bug themed, pulling inspiration from flies, cockroaches, and phasmids (also known as walking sticks). Death and decay informs much of the world's tone, with Tempest meant to imply a once lively planet now lying in ruin due to natural causes. As mentioned in the game's own lore, the world is modeled after our neighboring planet Venus, with a few additional creative liberties taken to make things more interesting from a gameplay perspective. Since the world is intentionally designed with fewer enemies in mind, there's been more of an emphasis placed on obstacles and platforming. The earth elemental power, which you'll need to literally open the portal to Tempest from SIM_SELECT(), will be used very liberally here as you cross large gaps and climb through the shocking caves to reach the electricity elemental power. Later on, you'll be visiting Tempest once more to uncover The Future Project's final secret before making your way to the game's finale.

Tempest was created after Alien Remnant, and as mentioned previously Alien Remnant was intentionally made to be big, bold, and different. That turned out to be a lot of work, and as a one man show it wasn't realistic to make every world like that. Plus, the idea of making Alien Remnant the large world gives it even more identity, so rather than take that identity away from Alien Remnant I decided Tempest was going to be its tonal opposite. The world would be quieter, there would be fewer overall enemies to fight, and the world itself would be smaller in scale. In fact, it's the one world in the game that doesn't have some monstrous lifeform as a boss anywhere in it. Its only boss fight is the Saboteur. So, with this philosophy in mind, I quickly decided that Tempest's main gimmick to set itself apart from the rest of the worlds in the game would be its use of environmental hazards. There would be an emphasis on platforming while avoiding the dangerous electrical arcs that appear throughout the world. Even one of the enemies, the Pulse Fly, is meant to be more of an environmental hazard than an active threat. It's just bumbling along doing its own thing, whether or not you get caught in its electric pulses is entirely up to you. All of this may sound like Tempest is one of the easier worlds in the game, and depending on what you find difficult in games that may actually be true. But I still wanted to provide some interesting navigation and platforming challenges through the placement of obstacles and a reliance on the earth ability, which can then lead to some interesting resource management on the part of the player depending on how many upgrades they've acquired. The challenges are there, it's just a little different from what past worlds had offered.

We kick things off in the barren outdoor areas of Tempest. Compared to most worlds, constructing this was actually pretty easy. By this point in development I had gotten very comfortable with Unreal Engine's landscaping tools, so much of the environment is just the landscape itself, including walls and pits. This winds up giving Tempest a slightly more natural look than the other locations in the game. These starting rooms are pretty straightforward, meant to sell the atmosphere of Tempest more than anything. But things liven up pretty quickly when you encounter your first enemies and the first pits. From there, you make your way to the first save station, where you'll also encounter the first set of electric arcs. Remix these items a couple times and you get the outdoor area. It's simple and is mostly there to set up the basic atmosphere and expectations of Tempest. Of particular interest would be the cockroach-like Rochtis enemies, which will roam aimlessly until you get too close to them. They're a bit like the Dwellers from Jeweled Tundra except they could, in theory, accidentally get up close to you. I particularly liked making the design of these creatures, with their strange little heads and those unsettling mouths on its back. And that's not a pattern, by the way. Those are legit mouths on its back. With teeth. Why would I make something horrific like that? The better question is, why wouldn't I?

Next are the caves, which is where the real meat of Tempest comes in. I pretty deliberately put the more exciting stuff in these areas to help sell the idea that the caves are the only places where life can realistically exist in this world. This is further evidenced by the swift introduction of two more enemies, the Plasmick and Pulse Fly. As mentioned earlier, the Pulse Flies are more of an obstacle than an actual enemy. Worlds need as many unique things as we can get while still maintaining its theme, and Pulse Flies were a perfect two in one object for creating an enemy as well as an environmental hazard. Plasmicks are a much more hostile force in the caves, possessing the ability to stun you and having some of the highest health of any enemy in the game. The thinking was that their hard exteriors is what grants them this durability. The rest of the caves involve getting past electrical obstacles while avoiding enemy attacks, and searching out these strange rock formations that control electrical flow to other parts of the cave. Do enough exploring and you'll eventually run into a wall of electrical arcs that prevent further access to the upper floor of the cave. These walls and the rock/electric apparatus are linked, so the idea is that the player should find these apparatus objects before progressing further. Many worlds in The Future Project have a mini quest to be done in them in order to progress further, such as Hand of the Water's mini bosses or the blue and red doors to be unlocked in Alien Remnant. This is Tempest's mini quest, a simple search for objects to shut down electric flow and proceed upward to your eventual prize.

You may also notice that, technically, the upper floor of the cave is already immediately accessible to you when you first enter the caves. Here's a little tip for all you sequence breakers out there – did you know your earth platforms will go higher if you jump just before they're summoned? Did you also know you can have the earth platform summon beneath you by looking down? While I won't claim to have made those things intentionally, I do think they are neat little accidents that lend themselves to some interesting speedrunning opportunities. Tempest is a great place to showcase this, as you can reach some parts of the upper floor by simply timing your jumps and earth summons to reach maximum height. If you come here with double jump, the effect is even more pronounced. You might think this was an oversight on my part, but the open nature of Tempest's caves is actually very intentional, even if it wasn't for this purpose. There was originally going to be a more involved puzzle requiring players to navigate between floors of the cave to move an object around to where it needed to be to progress. So, I designed the caves of Tempest with this idea in mind, which leads to a cave system where the player can quickly go from floor 3 to floor 2 from multiple points easily. But during development, implementing this puzzle proved to be a bit more complicated than anticipated, so rather than burn myself out trying to make it work, I simplified it to be a simple search quest. By the time the decision was made I had already gone to the trouble of setting up the floors the way they are. I didn't want to undo a bunch of work, so I made some necessary adjustments and left the overall design as is. This does prove to be a bit of a double edged sword though, because now if players fall they might have to retread a lot of ground to get back to where they were. Playtesting showed me that most players shouldn't have too much trouble with the platforming in these parts of the cave, so in the end I decided to take a risk with the design and see how it goes. In exchange for that risk, I've opened up the option for crafty players to sequence break Tempest and do things in an unintended way. Any fan of the metroidvania genre knows that sequence breaking can be incredibly satisfying to pull off, so while it was indeed a risky decision to do the floors of the cave this way, I do think it ultimately worked out well.

Finally, let's talk about the endgame area. During the boss fight with them, the Saboteur mentions that Tempest contains some secret that they encourage you to find. In order to unlock the final world you have to go this area, but you'll first need a few final powers to progress. It's those final few powers that really informed the level design of this endgame area. While there are plenty of obstacles that encourage the use of Aether's teleport abilities or Time Warp's time slowing, this is the first area that actually calls for both simultaneously (unless you visit some optional areas in Heaven first, but I digress). On the one hand, this is pretty fun from a game developer's perspective because you can get pretty wild if you want. On the other hand, you have to be careful to not make it too difficult for progression. It definitely took some time and a few attempts to get it right, and even after I was personally satisfied there was still the occasional tweaking to be done thanks to feedback from playtesters. Without getting into heavy spoilers, there's also the final few rooms of this area that I personally enjoyed making. The thought with these rooms was “let's get a little weird”, and thus it was made so. It was also satisfying to make this area because finishing it and starting on the final world pretty much marked the beginning of the end of The Future Project's development. The content was mostly in place at this point, it was just a matter of adjusting what was there, balancing the game, fixing bugs, and finishing out the last few pieces of content. When this final piece of Tempest was completed, it really felt like a big milestone.

And with that, I've now talked in detail about each world in the game in this dev blog! It only took, like, two years. Oh, but I guess there is the game's final world and the final boss to look at as well, but I'd prefer to not get into such heavy spoilers when the game's not even a year old yet. We'll save that for another time, perhaps if I ever find myself with nothing to talk about for the monthly dev blog. For now, that was Tempest! It's a simpler world compared to its brethren, but what it lacks in size and complexity I've tried to make up for with unique gameplay and interactions. It does house some important story moments though, and knowing the story beats in particular it's actually quite appropriate that they would be found in Tempest. As far as progression is concerned, the main point of Tempest is to acquire the electricity elemental power to round out the elemental powers in your arsenal and open up some key areas in the game. Once you have it, you not only have almost all the tools to deal with enemies efficiently, but you also get incredibly close to the end of the game.

Until next time!

-Lance T.