Level Designer
HOWL: A Tale of Wolves
Winner of Digipen's Best Sophomore Game in 2020
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Howl: A Tale of Wolves was a major game project for our Sophomore year in Digipen. From the start, we knew we wanted to make a game that tells a specific story and to be able to invoke emotions in the player. We want them to feel something after they are done playing.
“There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place.”
- J.K. Rowling
This project was no doubt a very challenging and ambitious project, as it was the first time any of us are attempting to make a narrative game. Furthermore, it was amidst all our other school assignments, projects, and exams. However, despite all that, every single person in the team gave it their all and we have made HOWL into a game that we are all proud to call our own.
EARLY CONCEPT
The main concept is based on a core theme, A Mother's Love. The initial characters we were going with were actually chickens. It would be about a mother hen protecting her chicks from predators. However, our lecturers gave us a piece of feedback about how choosing an animal that is mostly prey might limit us in terms of gameplay.
After some discussion, we finally settled on the idea of wolves who is both prey and predator. This opened up numerous gameplay options for us to explore, such as being able to destroy environmental objects to open up paths and solve puzzles. Once we settled on our character, it was time to decide what mechanics are we going to have in the game.
GAME MECHANICS
Cheng Ying, the other designer on the team, and I wanted to explore mechanics that could not only serve gameplay but to also build on the bond between the players and the two wolves. After tossing around some ideas, we thought it would be cool to allow the players to swap between the mother wolf and the cub instead of having the cub just follow along as you controlled the mother.
This also led to a lot of opportunities for gameplay as the two wolves have distinct differences. The mother is big and strong, allowing her to destroy objects. On the other hand, the cub is small and is able to fit into small areas that the mother would not be able to fit into. But ultimately, as we want to tug on the player's heartstrings, what better way to build an emotional connection with the two characters than having the player play as both of them!
NARRATIVE DESIGN
Choosing to use wolves as our characters were the easy part. We soon realized that we knew next to nothing about wolves and how they live! So the next step for us? We started watching documentaries to learn as much as we could about wolves to be able to craft a believable story, and perhaps provide educational info on wolves that people would not have known about.
We came across this documentary featuring the lives of wolves in Yellowstone National Park(which was very interesting, if I might add) and that was where we got our inspiration for the game's setting. We also learned that Yellowstone has seasons which we felt would fit perfectly for the story we wanted to tell.
“Like the seasons of the year, life changes frequently and drastically. You enjoy it or endure it as it comes and goes, as it ebbs and flows.”
- Burgess Meredith
The game would start off in Spring which signifies peace and calm. It is also where the characters are happiest.
It would then move to Autumn, where it signifies the coming harshness of Winter.
The game then transits into Winter, which is the bulk of the game. This is where the mother wolf and her cub have to overcome challenges from both the environment as well as other wildlife.
The game then ends back in Spring to show that a full circle and how the characters have grown through the journey that they have taken.
LEVEL DESIGN
Coming up with levels was a challenging task. I wanted players to feel something as they went through the level and faced each challenge. I also knew I had to pace the gameplay and narrative beats well in order to provide a good player experience.
As this is all new to me, I went to research on how games pace their gameplay and narrative beats. I came across this GDC talk by Celeste's lead developer, Maddy Thorson. He has this interesting method of level design where he tells a story through the game's levels.
This image is his process of designing levels. I will not get too much into it but essentially the game is broken into Areas that are further broken down into Levels. Areas are the different seasons with their own pacing and story. Levels are the events and gameplay that happen with the Areas. Each Level will also have a problem for the player to solve with a start, middle, and end. An example of how we applied this is as follows:
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Area: Winter
Level: Showing Hunger
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Start: Show the wolves hungry though animations and post processing fx like vignette slowly fading in as time goes on
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Middle: They see a small animal but as they come close to it runs
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End: Mom and Pup work tgt to hunt this animal and succeed. However, it is a small animal and the mom gives the carcass to the pup to eat. As the mom watches the pup eat, she notices an elk in the distance which could be their saving grace from this hunger.
I then had another challenge where I wanted to invoke emotions in the player. For this, I decided to consult my lecturer to hear his advice on how I should approach this. He told me to try writing down the emotions that I wanted the player to feel at each point in the level before I started sketching out anything.
This would allow me to approach designing the levels methodically as I could directly see what emotions I am trying to invoke and evaluate whether the level does its job in providing said emotion. Below are some sketches I made using the technique my lecturer gave me. These sketches eventually made it into the final version of the levels.
ART PIPELINE FOR ORGANIC ENVIRONMENT
Laying out the levels also proved to be a challenge due to the organic environment of our game. We wanted to not make the environment look too tiled and repetitive which would be the result if we were to use Tilemaps. The initial plan was for the level to be completed first, then be passed to the art team to paint it over. However, as you can imagine, that is not the most optimal solution. Should the level need to be tweaked, it would cause a lot of wasted work. The solution to this problem took us months as the designers and artists discussed how best to tackle this problem.
We analyzed at numerous sidescroller games with organic environments such as Ori and the Blind Forest. We came to a realization that Ori could have created modular environment assets that are able to blend into each other. These modular pieces can then be pieced together like lego to form larger organic environment pieces. This was the final solution we all agreed upon and it is how we created the levels in the game. Below are some examples of the modular assets we used for the Winter level.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This project was one of the most ambitious projects I have been apart of, but it is also one where I learnt so much about the different processes in game development. The lessons and techniques I have gained through this journey will definitely aid me in my future projects and also in making better design decisions. I am really proud of how the project turned out in the end and it is solely due to the talented and amazing individuals who were part of this team.
I hope you enjoyed looking through my processes and the numerous challenges faced during this project. Thank you for reading and I'll catch you in the next project!