Design of War Ender - Level 2-2
Originally published May 1st, 2020
A turning point for both the game and its development.
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Whoa, War Ender! Welcome back! Not like the site is named after you or anything. Yes, after months of drumming up Impressions hype and talking about future games, we finally return to dissecting the levels within War Ender and see what brought me to making the levels the way I did. What do I like about it? What would I change, if anything? And since we're talking about Level 2-2, how did this level in particular mark a major turning point in the design and development of War Ender.
Let's briefly recap what's happened, considering it's been a while since I've talked about this game. Two levels ago the player would have fought the game's first boss, the Wall of Lasers. Upon defeating the boss, Red falls down into an underground labyrinth beneath The City. Level 2-1, the previous level, was completely different in tone and pacing compared to the rest of the game. It has no humanoid enemies, only machines and obstacles. As a result, the level had a bit more emphasis on platforming than many of the others. Clearing the level, however, brings you to 2-2 where the usual War Ender gameplay and setup returns. Human enemies are back, the pacing returns to a faster pace, and the music turns itself back up to eleven. But this level does more than just bring the usual pace back. This level was also where I started to get more experimental with level layouts and enemy placement to create interesting and fun levels while exploring as many possibilities with the game's design as I could.
It all starts in the beginning. The opening starts off right away with two things, a torch and a basic shooter enemy. The enemy will shout out to the others in the area that Red has arrived and that he apparently needs to be stopped. Hmm...what are they were so worried about? Aside from the usual, that is. Before you even see him there's the aforementioned torch blocking your path, presenting yet another new obstacle to the player. The method to get past them is fairly simple - just use the dodge. A common trend within War Ender is that any time a new element is introduced I try to put the player in a place where all they need to focus on is that particular obstacle. They can take as long as they wish, learning what the obstacle is all about, and perhaps even experiment a little. In this case, the torch is fairly easy to get around, but the player will quickly learn that positioning becomes fairly important from here on. Before this point the player is able to dodge pretty freely with the worst consequence being that they'll run into an enemy. Now they have to contend with items that explicitly mark the “don't stand here” locations.
As the player marches upward, they get to what is perhaps my favorite part of this entire level, and is still to me one of the better chunks of level design in War Ender. Towards the end of the first section the player is faced with torches, a large amount of enemies before them, and some rocket turrets above them. Also dangling above them is a health pack, which will be very helpful if you intend to do a destroyed checkpoints run. For much of this game, the player has had to deal with threats right in front of them but now they have to contend with attacks coming from above. As I was developing the game I felt this was the first point where I thought I really needed to weave in and out of enemies and obstacles in order to get through a section unscathed. It's really quite the challenge at this point in the game, possibly one of the hardest parts in War Ender to this point. But I do really like it. I love how the torches demand you consider positioning, how the rockets keep you moving, and how the enemies block your path.
Get past this and you've reached the second section. Here, a little platforming takes place. Once again getting experimental, I placed pyros on either side of a chasm and ask the player to jump to the top to progress. The idea is that they'll have to defeat the pyros in order to properly progress, else their flames will destroy the platforms (an unintentional interaction, but one I found quite useful). Skilled players may be able to get through this part without needing to defeat the pyros, but it's certainly a lot more difficult doing it this way. Still, one of the unique things about War Ender's design is that there's often more than one way to get through an area. Sometimes this was a conscience choice, and other times it just sort of happened.
At about the midway point of this section the player is once again presented with a choice – ignore a health pack, or do an additional challenge to regain some health. The challenge is reaching the health pack without hitting any of the mines surrounding it. This idea was also executed on in level 1-3, but this version is coming at the player from a different angle. In 1-3 you could destroy a couple mines, drop through the platform, grab the health, jump back up and continue on your merry way. This time I wanted the player to really commit to picking up this health, or shoot-float past it if they didn't want or need it. If they go for it, they'll have to destroy more mines to both get the health pack without losing health at the same time and to leave the pit. After this decision the player runs through a few more enemies and reaches the third section of the level.
The third section is perhaps one of the more routine portions of War Ender level design. As a result, I think it's the easiest and least exciting part of the level. The most experimental I got with this part was placing a turret right in front of a torch, forcing the player to defeat it before dodging past the torch. Towards the end of this section things get a little more interesting. There's a brief section where the player uses jump pads to get up to a higher level, and right at the end you have two torches on a platform with some enemies on it. In addition, you've got Obsessors coming down from above, and blocking the path to progress is a rocket turret, sitting on top of an elevated area across a gap. The point here is fairly straightforward, and that's to defeat the rocket turret to get out of the situation. But you've got Obsessors coming in from above too, so unless you're really fast you have to take some time to shoot those out of the sky. I like this section for the questions you have to answer here, the primary question being “when do I stop shooting the rocket turret to defeat some Obsessors?” Get past that, and you're in the last section of the level where one more experiment awaits.
Section four is largely made up of a huge chasm you must get past via platforming across disappearing floors. It would have been easy to just let the player shoot-float their way across, possibly to the end of the level, but remember how I said there was one more experiment in this section? If the player does decide to shoot-float all the way through, they'll run into the huge swarm of Obsessors blocking the path, sapping their health and defeating the player. Copious amounts of Obsessors are placed above and around the platforms. The point is not to fight them, but to evade them. So the player will have to move fast across the disappearing platforms to make it down to solid ground where the rest of the section remains. This was a part of the level where I said I wanted the player to move and react quickly, so that's why there's disappearing platforms on top of the Obsessors moving towards the player. It's a simple bit of level design, but one that I find quite effective. This won't be the last time this idea would make its way into the level design either. A couple levels later this same idea is implemented but in a slightly different way. After making your way through the swarm, the rest of the level is a few enemies, some torches, and some jump pads and then you're done. This part of the level is short, but it's to the point.
So what all happened here inside level 2-2 that changed War Ender's level design? Simply put, it was a level full of experiments, primarily in enemy placement. The first section is the best example of this, consisting of enemies above and in front of you. Not long after was a platforming section where pyros would interfere with platforming until their defeat, and towards the end a large swarm of Obsessors forces the player to approach the level a certain way. And those are simply the major portions of level design. There's a handful of smaller experiments going on, especially with the introduction of the torch object. This level, 2-2, was the first level in War Ender to really show off how the same enemies can come at you from different angles. Not that earlier levels didn’t do this, but it was often done in such a way to show off one specific enemy and/or obstacle. This is the level that brought all the enemies and all the objects together in the most fleshed out level yet. All the remaining levels in War Ender would build off the ideas brought out in level 2-2.
Next time we come back to War Ender, we'll take a look at the first level to be influenced by the philosophies of level 2-2, that level of course being 2-3. It introduces the moving platforms, which will allow more dynamic platforming and enemy placement. Story wise, we'll also be taking a break from grey underground worlds to a hidden lab underneath The City. Within this lab lies a weapon being created by The Outsiders to defeat Red and his allies. But I'm sure Red is up to the task of getting rid of it.
Until next time!
-Lance T.
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