August Update

Yeeaah I know I'm past August. Sorry! I got super busy. This schedule of digital shows is killing me. It sort of feels like I've been working on nothing but demos for virtual showcases for the last half year.

But I know, if i think about it, that I haven't...

Level Design

Because I've been working on A NEW LEVEL:

This is level 4, the server closet. That white box at the bottom is one pair of servers in a rack, that middle shelf is cable management and monitor monunting, and the top white box is another pair of servers. Just try and squint and imagine how a sci-fi movie would represent a server rack, and you're close. There's even an internal fan that you can use to boost from level 1 up to that cable shelf, woo!

I finished rough-in on it yesterday, and initial tests say it skates ok, so now we start looking at mission design and broader user testing. Getting here was a bit of a journey though. I started way too big!

See that gray concrete pad? That was the original room extents. Which I had ALREADY shrunk a bit from planned size. See how the walls are pulled way in? That's the new dimensions.

Then see how I've built a layer of cardboard boxes WAY above the original floor? That further cut space out of the level. Namely, it meant I could skip a complicated set of rails and ramps and etc that spanned from ground to server, and all the ramps and etc that would then go on that floor.

Now the question is of course, why? The answer is: I'm dumb. Level 4, server closet, is meant to be a SMALL level. We're doing this cadence where we go big, small, big, small, big. So my dumb self sets out to make a small level, and what I ended up with was this 3 or 4 tier layer cake of a cool interconnected set of platforms and rails and asymmetrical access paths and OMG. So I asked Xalavier if it was too big, and he was all

" I think ya done made a big map."

so I hit the brakes, pulled back, and woo! Now it's... honestly still bigger than planned, but at least only moderately bigger. Heh. Also the reason for the cardboard boxes being stacked that high is this is now a literal forgotten server closet, that people gradually filled with other stuff. I'll throw a door in one of the walls there  (which you can only see the top half of cus the bottom is covered by boxes), and bam, it'll be GREAT.

Anyways, cool bit is, that rough-in only took about a week. So I kept it on schedule, and delivered a playable map in a time interval that means our schedule is, if you squint at it, still on-track. That's good! GREAT, even. We're starting production phase, and that's kind of like climbing into the log flume ride at Disney Land. It's all downhill, there are no breaks, and no matter what, SOME kind of splash down will now occur. So it's good that we're on course with initial planning, heh.

Other Stuff

I've also done UI overhauling, took a half swing at modifying Houdini tooling directly, screamed, and then instead added my tooling for Houdini assets in a stand-alone way. Really though, my tooling is COOL. Saves me tons and tons of time, it's why I was able to make that level rough so fast. Then I developed an even deeper hatred of Unity, figured out spine transfers, and I can't find a good video of it but YOU CAN NOW SPIN AROUND THE CORNERS OF BOWLS. Like gain air sideways and NOT fly out of the bowl. It's totally unrealistic, but it's one of those critical things for a skate game to do. Feels great! Also means you can do mega-transfers across the map and actually land into the ramp and skate off, because you get to the other side, snap into the vert there, and swooop there you go. It's great, and that work also involved doing "soft" grind welds, where you fall out of a rail end during a grind and it'll just continue grinding along any sufficiently close other rail, which means I can do fancier grind paths (and it makes my level design immensely easier). Anyways, then started the new level and yup scroll up to see how that went. YAY. Here we are.

Why Level 4?

I figure someone out there might be low-key wondering at this point "wait, level 4? so are you done with the game almost?". No, that's the first level we're making. The why behind that is interesting!

Also, take these level numbers as examples only. We're still early in production. The number of levels could change. Writers, I see you. Don't out of context quote this, come on now, I've warned you that this is all subject to change. Ok? Ok! :D

A lot of designers like to in-order make a game. You make the first level first, and the last level last. It feels good, it's how you think through the plot, and it's logical. This has some huge problems, though. The biggest is that your first content is almost always your worst. The levels you're making toward the end of production are just better, because you're really in the groove, your toolset has gotten as good as it'll get, you've figured out all the tricks. It's natural, right?

So then you're looking back at that janky level 1, that you made a year ago, and it's... oof. If you've ever heard of a game where the first level kept being remade? This is part of why. It's the first content the user sees, and therefore the most important. Nobody cares if the last level is great if they quit playing at level 1.

Hence, starting with level 4. I want level 4 of 5 to be great, and hopefully it will be, but if this ends up being the one that the community decides is the worst? Well, that's probably fine, since it's the short connective level that happens at the high conflict point of the story. So long as level 5 gives you a nice resolution, you probably coast on and end up happy enough with the game overall. So we do level 4 first, then 3, then 1, then 2, then 5.

Why level 2 nearly last? So this is another trick. Let's say we hit the end of dev, and oh no, oh god, we've run out of time because the idiot designer made all the small levels too big <cough> and now we don't have time to do them all. If we were doing them in order, that would mean we don't have time to make the last level of the game.

We... can't cut the last level. So at best, we can make it crappily and quickly. You've played a lot of games where the last few levels are barely there, and they clearly ran out of time, right? So yeah. Right. On the other hand, we could totally cut level 2, if only we hadn't already finished it! It's another connective level, and while it'd be nice, it isn't critical to the story, and if the other levels were bigger anyways nobody would realize it was even missing. So that's why level 2 is nearly at the end - it creates another potential emergency blast-away component. It also has the benefit of making the first few levels feel that much better, since they were all done close to last, or last.

Wrap-Up

So that's about it for this update. Figured the behind the scenes map breakdown would be cool, but if that was too long, sorry (but also let me know cus we're entering a phase where I might start doing a LOT of that). Code/content tier folks will get... well look over there and you'll see, still trying to decide which new thing is the coolest in isolation. :D