Level Design
I thought I’d give an example of some level design ideas I implemented into Ray’s the Dead. The game is linear and cuts across 30+ levels, but we wanted to take some of those levels and make them a bit more interesting by introducing sections that were more open and allowed the player more agency to impact the outcome. Here is one example.
Water Tower Level
In this level the player is tasked with crossing a bridge that is currently guarded by a few police. Ray, always the practical type, decides a good solution is to knock over a nearby water tower, sending water raging toward the police, washing them away.
To do this, the player must gain access to, and weaken the three main support beams holding the water tower up. Each one requires Ray and his crew to navigate tricky terrain and occasionally engage in combat with a few patrolling enemies.
On his way to the second section, Ray encounters a very dangerous electrified sliding gate. He cannot touch it or pass through it until he knocks out the power, as he has learned from prior experience.
He finds his way to the power supply without any opposition, and destroys it. However, a bunch of enemies come out to see what all the commotion is about. Now Ray sees that his way back will be far more difficult.
We wanted to give the player the option to do something about that. If they enjoy combat they can simply fight and eliminate all the enemies. However, if the player takes some time to explore a bit more, they may find a clever way to reduce the number of enemies they have to fight.
Ray destroys the power source….
… the lights go out and the patrolling enemies run away scared.
The area is brightly lit, and some of the enemies have indicated that they are afraid of the dark. The player can take advantage of that! There is another nearby power supply that controls the power for the lighting in the area. If it is destroyed, the lights will power down, and some of the enemies will become frightened and run away.
Not the same part of the game, but the removing the lights to clear the area is reinforced elsewhere.
In either scenario the player has to engage in some amount of combat, but I felt this was a neat bit of additional influence the player can have over the flow of the level, and it doesn’t deviate from any of the mechanices we have already introduced. This is entirely missable / skippable and that was fine with me!