Design of War Ender - Level 3-1
Originally published October 1st, 2020
Get to the choppah!
Check out all the Infinite Level games!
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Infinite%20Level
Itch: https://prof-smash.itch.io/
Hello again! Let's continue with a War Ender dissection, this time covering level 3-1. To recap, Red has just defeated the giant war robot RAWM, located underneath The City. It was quite a fight, but nothing our hero couldn't handle. I mean, he did survive a self destructing building, so can anything really stop him? The answer is no, but the enemy doesn't seem to understand that. But hey, persistence ain't a bad trait to have. With another success under his belt, Red climbs back up to the rooftops of The City in 3-1 to make his way to the Outsider base. On his way there, Red is introduced to a new enemy type...the helicopter.
Yes, helicopter enemies are introduced here. They are one of the last new enemies to be introduced in the game, with one more coming towards the end of chapter 3. Out of all the regular enemies the player has faced, this one is easily the bulkiest and can lay on the most damage if the player isn't mindful of their positioning. It's also the only standard enemy that has more than one attack. It fires a constant stream of bullets from its gun and drops bombs from its center. It's a pretty unique enemy, and one I personally enjoyed designing levels with. I dedicated this level to introducing the player to this enemy and getting them acquainted with its abilities. Simultaneously, the player is also developing new strategies for defeating them, and is hopefully rethinking how certain enemies must be approached now that they have a new member in their ranks.
So let's begin the breakdown. Our new foe is not introduced right away. Instead, we take a brief moment to fight some familiar foes and utilize some previously introduced objects to get past part 1 of 3-1. Only at the end of the first section do you find yourself faced against the helicopter. On top of that, it's not alone. You have a pyro standing on the other end of the building shooting firewalls at you. To be truthful, it probably would have been better to isolate the helicopter and let the player focus solely on it. Pyros are easy enough to take out, so it's not a huge problem, but giving the player time to learn something new is typically a good idea. At the same time, I know what I was trying to do. The pyro forces the player to dodge in order to maintain their health, so I wanted to make the player understand that helicopters will be used in conjunction with other enemies to try and get the player to accidentally leap into the helicopter's constant stream of bullets.
Once this is understood, the player can easily proceed into the second section. Like I've done with all enemies, I'm taking a newly introduced enemy and trying to throw it at players in a new way. This time, the helicopter has a lot more backup with a small swarm of Obsessors making their way over and couple other enemies nearby. Get past it and you'll get a new health pack to help you out, then proceed onto the next helicopter. This one has a lot of foot soldiers coming straight at you, which means you'll want to prioritize them while still avoiding the helicopter's attacks. Once they're gone you'll likely have a lot of breathing room to deal with the helicopter. After that, the second section is complete. By this point, the player will have been introduced to helicopter and should be pretty familiar with its tactics. The player should understand that positioning becomes really important with this enemy and also learn to prioritize more aggressive targets before dealing with the helicopter.
The next uses the helicopter in probably the most basic way. After making their way through a series of enemies, the player briefly encounters another helicopter to take down. By the time you get to it there should be little else standing in your way, so it's a pretty easy target. Now we get to a platforming focused part. Here, the player must use the moving platforms to make their way across a huge chasm. Of course, one may wonder why they don't just shoot-float across the chasm. My response to that is a cloud of Obsessors that will blow up in Red's face if the player attempts to do so. Clever players have been able to evade enemy encounters by shoot-floating past them, but I'm really trying to clamp down on those evasions from here on. Unless you get tricky with the game's mechanics, you shouldn't be able to shoot-float past any encounters like you might have in the previous levels. Take part in the platforming, survive, and you reach the final part of the level.
Part four brings everything seen in this level together, with a dash of platforming and some new enemy encounters to test the player with. The last helicopter is introduced along with a turret, any Obsessors the player leftover (you'll find that helicopters and Obsessors are found together quite often), along with a pyro, who has a small line of robots to defend himself with. New to this cast of baddies are some mines and a torch. Remember the pyro and helicopter combination from the first part of the level? I sort of flipped it around, with the pyro being the enemy you'll likely take down last and the helicopter being priority one. Even though in most situations it'll be better to fight off the foot soldiers first, sometimes that helicopter just needs to be dealt with immediately. Get rid of it, clear away the mines and robots, and then you can finally deal with the pyro. I've always liked this challenge because it really emphasizes player positioning, plus the pyro is almost more of an inanimate obstacle than an enemy. It's sort of like the grenade enemies on moving platforms that can't be reached that provide this constant threat. Here, the pyro is around for longer thanks to all his defenses which creates constant walls of fire to appear until he's defeated. I think this is one of (if not the) only places where the pyro is used like this. After defeating them and a couple other straggler enemies, you've cleared 3-1.
In summary, we've introduced a new enemy and showed off various ways that it can come at you. One thing you might notice is that there aren't a lot of helicopter enemies in the whole level. In fact, if my count is correct, there are five in the entire level. Compare that to the grenade enemy, introduced in 1-2 and appearing in bigger numbers. And that was in a level where a lot of enemies were being introduced. Part of the reason I did this is simply because the helicopters take ten shots to defeat, and padding out the level with a bunch of enemies with that much health didn't seem like a good idea. Plus, because of their large size, they can't be placed just anywhere. Compared to all other enemies, helicopters require a little preparation on my end to make interesting. They don't rely on the level geometry to change their tactics much, so they have to rely on their comrades to boost their own ability.
Red's quest to the Outsider base is off to a good start. But...who's that standing behind the end flagpole? Well, let's proceed and find...oh. You've been attacked. Looks like Red might be taking a slight detour. I'm sure he'll be fine though. Next time we touch War Ender, we'll be in a brand new environment with an entirely new faction to fight off. How exciting! We've been fighting Outsiders for so long that a new enemy group would liven up the game quite nicely. So long as we're covering this faction, I may as well also discuss how they became part of the War Ender universe. So in addition to level design, we'll get a look at how the story developed as well. See you then!
Until next time!
-Lance T.
Check out all the Infinite Level games!
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Infinite%20Level