Design of War Ender - Level 2-3
Originally published June 1st, 2020
Red storms another secret facility!
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Welcome to another dissection of War Ender, specifically on level 2-3. In the last level, Red had continued making his way through The City's underground area. That time, he was finding some humans as opposed to the machinery peppered throughout 2-1. They seem to be hiding something...but nobody keeps secrets from Red! He stormed his way through to find himself in some kind of underground Outsider facility. During 2-2, Red was introduced to the torch obstacle, a new device the Outsiders could place in the ground that spews constant fire straight up. At the same time, the enemy was clearly refining their tactics, attacking Red in new and surprising ways.
The trend of introducing something new in every level continues in 2-3, this time introducing a platforming staple – the moving platform. Fun fact, this was weirdly difficult to code. I remember running into problems where Red would just slide off the moving platform, or suddenly couldn't jump anymore after landing on one. Such a tried and tested mechanic of platformer games, and here am I not sure how to get it working right. It was definitely a process. But it was worth it, because War Ender's level design going forward would not quite be the same after introducing this object.
As usual, the player is introduced to the moving platform object in a safe environment before proceeding. The player can study this object as much as they wish, before using it to progress. They should notice two things during this time. The first is that the platforms reverse direction whenever they hit these brown circle shaped objects. In hindsight, this wasn't the most obvious indicator for where the platforms stop and change direction. It kind of just looks like decoration in the level. Later levels, I feel, do a better job of making the player know that these objects indicate the points at which a moving platform changes direction since they'll be floating in the air. The second thing to note is that there is an enemy on one of the platforms, showing the player that they can find enemies on these platforms. I'm effectively trying to warn the player that enemies will now come at them from even more angles than before.
After that introduction, I put the player into the first combat room in the game. It incorporates the torch seen in the previous level and has moving platforms on either side of the arena with turrets mounted onto them. Technically the player could simply charge past the turret on the right side of the arena and take a hit, but this is a brute force way of doing it. Instead, I'm subtly trying to encourage the player to defeat the enemies in the arena before moving on. Or, to think of it another way, I'm encouraging the player to play the game in the way that I, the developer, think they would have the most fun with. It's a bit of a gamble, yes, but it's actually been a gamble made throughout the game. Once they get past this part they just have to defeat a few more enemies and platform across a chasm using the moving platforms and they'll be through section one.
The next section is largely used to demonstrate more of the moving platform and have short combat bursts as opposed to one giant encounter. I largely made this section to reinforce everything that had come before, especially in regards to the moving platform object. Once again, we're putting enemies on the object and asking the player make their way across the level using these platforms. Truthfully, not a whole lot to the second section. It just serves as more practice for the new mechanics of War Ender. The third section is largely a gauntlet of enemies with a platforming challenge at the end, and that platforming bit is quite the moment. For starters, now the moving platform is moving diagonally, something it had not been doing up until now. So just in case the player thought they could only move up and down or left and right, here's proof that the moving platform can do more. On top of that, there isn't really a safe space to land at the end of the ride, since a torch is in the way. The player has to have some careful timing to dodge past the torch at the end of the moving platform's ride without getting hit. Or worse, plummeting to their death.
Get past that and the only other thing standing in the player's way is the pyro enemy, encouraging more dodging from the player. But actually, let's back up for a minute. We sure did gloss over that enemy gauntlet in section three, didn't we? Well, there's a bit of a reason for that...there's nothing stopping the player from shoot-floating over the entire thing. This might be my single biggest regret in the entire design of level 2-3. I'm happy with everything else in the level, but I'd definitely make one change here. I wish I had put Obsessors in the air to discourage simply jumping and shoot-floating across the entire gauntlet. Fortunately, I think I subconsciously learned from this moment and would go on to add some Obsessors over a chasm in a later level to prevent this very problem from happening again.
Moving along to the fourth section, we have some simple platforming and one more (unskippable) gauntlet of enemies to contend with before ending the level. What's interesting about this section is the grenade enemies sitting atop moving platforms above the area. It's the same idea as earlier, with enemies sitting atop moving platforms, but the enemy in question is the grenade enemy. To me, the way grenade enemies mix with moving platforms is far more interesting than the way many of War Ender's enemies mix. The most putting the other enemies on moving platforms does is usually give them multiple places to shoot as opposed to their single position. It changes how you may approach them, but not dramatically. Meanwhile, grenade enemies can be placed on moving platforms above an area and rain grenades down on the player. It practically forces a different approach to combat. I thought it very interesting at the time, and still think it's one of the most fun enemy and obstacle matches in the game. Later on, rocket turrets will get be placed on these too and the effect is similar. However, I have a soft spot for the grenade enemies on moving platforms myself.
Immediately after this battle lies another interesting conundrum. You've got a pyro shooting their flame walls from across a pit filled with mines and robots. Ultimately, if you're to avoid damage altogether, you'll have to go into the mine pit and carefully navigate your across to get to the other side. Of course, those with some health to spare could simply shoot-float their way to the pyro if they wish, though I wouldn't advise that myself. Instead, the idea is to take out the robots before carefully dodging past the mines to make your way across. Or, if you don't want to use the dodge, time your jumps so that you can jump over or destroy the mine without hitting the pyro's flame wall. Once you get to the other side, you fight a few more enemies, and then the victory is yours!
So in the end, level 2-3 is trying to do two things. The first and most obvious is that moving platforms are introduced. During 2-3, the player is given several opportunities to get familiar with the moving platform and its quirks. It also takes the time to show how those moving platforms can change enemy encounters, sometimes in drastic ways. The second goal is to encourage the player to play in certain ways more frequently. This is something the entire game tries to do, but earlier levels often allowed more approaches. Here, attempts to funnel the player into a certain play style to achieve maximum fun are more deliberate. However, there are a few moments in 2-3 where this isn't achieved, sometimes resulting in the player being able to skip entire sections of a level. This is just something I'll have to learn from, and would hopefully fix in later War Ender levels and apply in future games. I can already tell you that War Ender's next level won't be worrying about that though, because we'll be going from a platforming action level to a boss level, featuring the giant laser firing robot, RAWM.
Until next time!
-Lance T.
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