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| [ goodies | dev diary | chapter nine ] |
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| #9 |
Level design |
Making missions, an overview...
Grant "Hello there! With the help of the rest of the design department, I'm going to
explain how we go about creating a mission for Worms 3D. By the time you get your copy of Worms 3D with
all these beautifully crafted missions, you might be wondering 'Hmmm, I wonder how these missions are
made?' Well, with the help of my design buddies, I'm here to explain just how these missions are
created and the thought that goes into the finished article. Okay, let's-a-go!"
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Step 1 ::
initial concept &
the mission briefing |
The first step in any mission design is an initial idea. This may be an idea for a landscape, or a
particular gameplay idea that you want to try out. One of our small army of level designers, Kelvin
puts it like this ::
Kelvin "The initial mission concept, in my opinion, needs to come from one of two
things; either a landscape OR a feature, move or event in the game which feels fun; such as jumping
across gaps, flying around on a Jet Pack or something like that. If something pleases you in a
standard battle game then why not make a full mission out of it? Once you've got a landscape or a
game play feature the mission concept comes almost without thinking."
We find that focussing the mission idea like this helps keep the flavour of the missions consistent
and thus limits the workload for the rest of the team, as Kev, our puzzle specialist points
out ::
Kev "If you create a mission on paper, giving yourself total freedom to do whatever
you want you'll probably find that in the end what you've come up with is so far removed from the
usual Worms single player mission that it's inconsistent with everything else! Also with a design
that's quite far removed from the usual ideas, you might find that you need to make lots of requests
to the programmers in order for them to give you the necessary control over the game. There isn't
much point in the programmers spending time making lots of changes if you're only going to use them
for one mission."
Once the idea has been mulled over a little, a mission briefing is written. This gives all the
designers in the department an opportunity to have a look, see what they think, and offer any ideas
they might have for the mission. At only a page or two long, it's fairly brief, but it allows the
rest of design to see the idea, and gives the programmers and artists an opportunity to point out
any areas that may cause problems. When everyone's happy, it's on with making the
landscape...
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Step 2 ::
roughing out
the landscape |
Once you've got an idea and a mission briefing, it's time to create some sort of environment in
which to play. Mark, one of our 'environment supremos' has this to say ::
Mark "The construction of the terrain always starts using the simplest shapes to
rough out the level before going into more detail. The landscapes and majority of objects are
created within Team17's in-house 3D editing package. This is essential due to the unique nature of
the fully destructible landscapes and it also greatly reduces the amount of time that might
otherwise be spent importing and exporting out of traditional off-the-shelf 3D packages, as
everything is 'under one roof' and can easily be tried out in the game engine relatively hassle
free."
It's not all plain sailing though...
Mark "However, having a game that uses fully-deformable landscapes means that the
intricate details that might be taken for granted in a standard game have to be worked a lot harder
for, often using crafty construction methods to achieve the desired result. Imagine trying to build
a flower, or a car tyre, or worst of all, a ball out of a series of building blocks that can only be
manipulated to a small degree and you get the idea of the challenges that have faced us in building
the mission environments."
The landscapes are only built to a rough stage at this point, it would be pointless spending time
polishing a mission landscape if the mission idea didn't work. What's needed is some way of testing
how well the idea works, and how well the landscape fits the bill for the mission, in other words,
we need to get worms on there, crates, and any other objects that might be needed for the mission.
And that's the next step...
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Step 3 ::
placing worms,
enemies & objects |
The placement of worms, enemies and objects is critical to how the game plays, and how hard it is.
Let's have a look at an example of what gameplay considerations might need thinking about in just a
simple 'Kill all enemies' type mission ::
Grant "Let's say the odds in our example mission are two human controlled worms
against three enemy worms. To start with, I would place the player's worms a distance apart on the
landscape so that the mission wouldn't be over in a matter of seconds: these might be placed in
optimal locations on the map, i.e. behind cover, to ensure that they don't 'feel the wrath of the
enemy worms' too harshly right at the start of the mission.
For the enemies, I might place one close to the edge of the landscape so that the player would have
an opportunity for an easy kill 'early doors'. This would not only grab the player's interest but
also give satisfaction. I would place the next one at the furthest point away on the map to make the
player have to move, almost as if to flesh out the mission. As for the last enemy worm; I would
place him centrally on the map so that he could trade blows with the player's worms and maybe even
get a kill if the player is careless and leaves themselves open to attacks near the water's edge for
example."
With enemies and objects in the environment, all that's left to get the mission working is the
script...
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Step 4 ::
game scripting |
Scripts are text files that the game can read. These scripts tell the game all sorts of thing, for
example, when events should happen or what the player has to do to win, as Kev explains ::
Kev "The 'script' is how we in design refer to the scripting language. This is
essentially a form of high-level programming. To create a mission we have two components, the
landscape file (which is the level, the area that the Worms walk about on) and the script file
(which is a piece of simplified code that sets out the rules for the mission).
These script files are created and edited using a text editor. The script calls upon the objects,
worms and enemies that we've already set in the editor and passes this information to the game,
making sure that all the worms and objects appear on the landscape.
Using the script we can also check for certain events. For example, if we want a mission to end
when a Worm picks up a crate - using the script we assign that crate a number and check against that
number every time a crate is collected to see if it's the crate we're looking for. In the script
we'll also have another piece of code to tell the game to end the mission successfully upon
collection of that crate.
The sizes of script can vary massively, from the earlier simple scripts we produced being around 100
lines in length to the later more complicated missions which are now growing to be around 700 lines
in length! The script is a vital tool to creating single player content, and if you know the script
well you're limited only by your imagination in what you can make."
So what's it like scripting missions for Team17?
Kev "Scripting missions can be very rewarding, especially when you see other people
able to play and enjoy your missions from start to finish. The nature of scripting also
familiarises you with what it is possible to make in the game and helps you with coming up with new
ideas for the next mission."
We've got the rough landscape, we've got the worms, enemies and other game objects, and we've got
the script... so is it fun to play?
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Step 5 ::
play scripting |
Gameplay is of the utmost importance when it comes to mission design. Creating missions that are fun
to play can only be done by play testing the mission again and again, fixing things that don't work,
and changing things that aren't fun. This is a time consuming process, and requires the designer to
concentrate on lots of different things, as Grant explains ::
Grant "First of all, I'd play the mission as I would a standard battle and look out
for certain factors during the testing and I would make notes of how I would be able to rectify
those elements in order to create the desired mission feel.
Some of these factors would include ::
- Worm positioning (Is it fair to the player, or is it too easy for them?)
- Weapons (Has the player been given the right amount of weaponry and ammunition, or not enough?)
- Weapons crate positioning (Ensuring contents are adequate and balanced)
- Health crate positioning (Making sure that the health crates aren't too frequent, and ideally placed where they can be obtained after a battle, or prior to entering a major battle point)
- Commentary text (when should it occur, what should it say?)
- Playability/overall mission feel (Is the mission too hard, or is it too easy, does the mission flow nicely and play well etc..)
Once all the aforementioned factors have been adjusted so that the desired feel for the mission has
been achieved (this can take hours, sometimes days because obviously not everything can be sorted
out first time) then, you can sit back, relax for sometimes up to TWO MINUTES!... and then move onto
the next mission!!!!
ALL the above factors and more have to be considered in order to construct a good mission, but there
are many more factors that have to be thoroughly thought out but if I was to go into all of them,
we'd be here all night! I think it's best that I leave you with just a *tiny* piece of my 'mission
making' mind."
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Step 6 ::
polishing the
landscape |
When we're happy that the mission plays like we want it to, all that's really left to do is to add
that final bit of polish to the landscape. Simple blocks of landscape would now be replaced with
objects that have been carefully modelled, and textures applied to create the finished look. Mark
explains ::
Mark "Once a level has been constructed, the landscape still undergoes constant
tweaking and fine-tuning… swapping models in and out, re-shaping areas and checking that the overall
look and feel continue to fulfil the mission brief. Only when the construction of the level is
complete, are textures applied. Once again the nature of having fully deformable landscapes means
that the textures have to go all the way through a landscape like a name through a stick of rock,
otherwise you may find yourself blowing a hole in the land only to find the crater you're left with
looks different to the land surrounding it.
The final thing to bear in mind is the number of polygons that can be used. It's always wise to work
to a limit and as objects can't be constructed using anything less than a cube, the polygon total
can mount up pretty fast! However, all these constraints mean that no area of the map is 'knocked
out' as a bit of filler and everything has to be carefully considered. As a result the levels are
all the more interesting for it."
And that's pretty much it... how missions are created from the initial idea to the final landscape
and mission script. We hope it's give you an insight into what we do in the Team 17 design
department and look forward to you getting your hands on all the things we've been so busy
making.
Grant "Thanks for listening!"
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| [ goodies | dev diary ] |
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| Development Diaries |
We plan diaries right up until the end of the project and they will
appear every week or two, so keep popping back for updates. The great
thing about the diary is that so much just isn't written yet!
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| overview |
The graphics and images shown in the diaries so far don't come anywhere
close to where we are currently in terms of visual style.
The first few chapters merely serve to bring us 'up to date' to how we got
where we are. It's envisaged that we will catch up with current progress
by Christmas and the diaries will then mirror recent developments rather
than things from the distant past.
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Step 1 briefing
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Step 2 prototype
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Step 4 scripting
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Step 6 finished
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