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Resize Game

Level Design/Scripting

Summary

This is a puzzle game where you use the players perspective of the cube to change the size of them to solve puzzles. By picking up a cube the perspective of how big it seems to you will change how big it is when it is dropped. 

Specifications:

The Idea

The idea for the project came after watching gameplay of the reference game, Superliminal. There I saw the mechanic of changing the size of objects based on the camera's perspective, and I wanted to try to make puzzles for it by using UE4’s blueprints.

Level Overview 

When making the levels I tried to make use of the Kishotenketsu method of design, where you introduce, develop, twist, and lastly finish a level with a mechanic. 

Levels: 5-6:

The last levels combine all the mechanics of before as well as introduce using multiple cubes that will have to be shaped in varied sizes to make a stairway.

Design principles: 

This is a closer look into the 4th level of my game. The video below shows what the player sees when they first enter the chamber. In this level you can immediately see the exit of the level thanks to the color and pattern shift created by the dissolving walls in the end doorway. The player can also immediately see what they must do to reach the end: they must use one cube multiple times, changing its size to fit between the gaps of the platforms. I wanted the player to be able to identify what they have to do early in the levels. They would then have to figure out how to get there using the cubes. This is the first level where the moving platforms are used, I added it because I wanted to use this level to develop the base design with something else than the static platforms as well as to show the player how to use them since the levels coming up both use it. 

Levels 1-2: 

The first levels start out by introducing the idea of changing the size of the cube and using them to open doors.  

Levels 3-4: 

The next chambers show the player that they can use the size of the cubes to traverse big leaps and combine that with moving platforms. 

The process

  • I started off by trying to replicate the reference game's main mechanic. I started with this before I started with the real project, this was because I wanted to have a "proof of concept" to make sure it was doable and so that I had the time during the project for level designing the puzzles.

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  • Once the project started, I sat down and started to imagine what sort of puzzles I wanted to make. Pretty quickly I realized I wanted to have some way for the player not to be able to take the cubes between rooms, which would make it so the levels would be able to be broken and potentially skippable.

 

  • So, I decided to make a wall that the player could walk through but the cube would dissolve in their hands if it were held. I also realized during this time that I wanted to make doors that had pressure plates connected to them and if these plates were stepped on or had a cube on them the door would open.

 

  • After making the doors I started to focus more on the levels themself, adding features such as moving platforms that the player will have to first make cubes big enough to get onto as well as time their jump to get on. 

 

  • When all the levels were done, I handed it out to some of my classmates to get feedback and from it changed and tweaked the levels to make them feel better and to not be breakable. 

The making of a chamber

Scripting

Boxes 

The scaling of the boxes is done by measuring the distance to the wall and then using that value divided by a set number, so that it does not get massive, and then using that new number to scale the box. Once that is done the value of the player to the wall is also used to set the location of the box relevant to the player so that it does not clip into the wall when walking close to it. 

Use ctrl+scroll to look around

Walls

The dissolving walls are done by checking if the player is colliding with it, if it is then it checks if the player is holding a cube. If both of those are true, then a timeline will play of the material dissolving and then destroy the actor, once that is it creates a new cube at the originals starting point and then plays a similar timeline as before, but this time of the cube is materialized. 

Use ctrl+scroll to look around

Reflections

I am proud that I managed to do what I set out to do when I started the project, to make puzzle levels where you use perspective to make it through. However, if I were to create the project again, I would try to group the objects of each level in UE4 to make it easier to manage all of them. Another thing that I would change if I would have made the project again, I would try to fix the glitch where the box starts to fly around if it is inside the wall when held. 

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