Blockmesh time!

Author: Salireths.

This is a blockmesh of the level, plan for which I presented in the previous post, all the ideas that I have already talked about are now laid-out in-engine.

The Gateway in the middle closed by a shield, so the player needs to walk around the level while learning of basic gameplay mechanics before they can proceed and disable the shield. I had the same progression in mind while making this, even put cave-ins that stop the player from progressing in a wrong way.

I'd like to explain what blockout, blockmesh, or greybox mean (different words used to describe the same process).
When level designers create playable spaces, they don't always start by placing beautiful buildings, trees and rocks - sometimes those art assets might not be even complete at that stage (which is the case for us as well).
Think of it as making 3D sketches, where designers can safely and quickly experiment with different gameplay ideas and, very importantly, playtest these levels to make sure they are good before artists come and spend a lot of time working on pretty models and textures.

Here is a screenshot of some blockmesh from Uncharted 4:
Source article by Kotaku, which has more information about this topic, its interesting to see the humble beginnings of game levels.

Hub level blockout

So this is what I've been doing - I followed the plan and "sketched" the environment, placed various blocky shapes to represent future art elements. This process enabled me to walk around this place and gave a sense of scale and pacing. Spoiler alert: I wasn't too satisfied with the result, but improvement ideas came really quickly thanks to having an actual level blockout - more about it further down.

I tried to put many interesting geometric shapes that I will be later using to draw concept art on top of, and it does help to flesh out the design language of our Dragon technology - lots of crystals, semi-chaotic structures, glowing bits... I need to do more design work to figure out how to make "Lego kits" for this technology - modular set pieces that will decorate not only this level, but be used throughout the game in different configurations to create more variety with less art required.

By the way, this in particular is a crafting room with a rough form of a Materializer in the middle. I don't think its the final shape of it, but it will do as a temporary placeholder until I start figuring out the designs. Those machines are extremely important for the gameplay - you will be interacting with them whenever you need to craft anything.

I also blocked out some interiors according to that plan sketch - bar, baths, dorms, and toilet.

This one I like a lot, its a restaurant/club/bar. Instead of tables and chairs it will have soft round mats where creatures can sit or lay down on. There is no need for cooking to be done - the materialization technology is used to create all kinds of foods and drinks, as long as the recipe is known.

Putting a stage here was a cool idea I think, it opens a lot of opportunities so to say, and players themselves can use it for their roleplay ideas! I can't stop thinking of pole-dancing Dragons >_<

Standing on the stage makes it really hard to see the rest of the room, volumetric fog is cool to play with!

Had a lot of fun working on the baths area - that thick moist hot steam!

I basically took a cenote, combined with some geysers inside, waterfalls and hot springs, ideal place to relax.

And I couldn't skip this opportunity to put a heat-rock sauna for our beloved scaly creatures.

I consider part of Dragon culture is about creating nature-like spaces to serve various utility needs. A natural-looking cave can be carefully engineered instead of building walls and ceilings.

I've experimented with a living quarters place (dorm) - the hub world was to be some kind of a space station, a small cozy place to relax when transitioning between worlds.

Those balls are supposed to be individual modular living spaces for creatures (think about capsule hotels from Japan), but I haven't worked on their interior layout yet. The loops in the middle is a grav-shaft, a microgravity tube for flying between floors.

And of course, since we have a restaurant, baths, and a sleeping place - the only thing that was left to add is a toilet room, so this was my attempt at that.

The holes in the walls are big enough to comfortably fit your tail in, while the constantly running water will keep things clean. That was the idea at least, I could work more on this. Also I thought that making individual toilet stalls will be way too anthropomorphic, the in-game species have a different culture and mindset when it comes to doing natural things.

To travel to those interiors we had to make the exterior-interior portals.

The interiors are represented as separate levels from the main world, so to go back and forth the character needs to be teleported between them. In other games the "teleportation" is usually (and logically) done when character interacts with the doors, but we didn't want to simply make the character fade-away from one world and appear in the other, we still preserve the momentum and relative location to those "portals".

Our solution still teleports the characters, but they still need to physically walk through the door-frame! Its not much, but I think its a bit more immersive.

The act of opening the doors hides the loading done in background - the door won't open until the level behind that door has finished loading.

Despite the immediate change of environment, the experience is quite smooth - we might add a quick fade effect to improve the transition later.

Testing and doubts

All and all, I blocked out everything I talked about in the previous post, and it was a lot of fun! However the more I walked around this place the more I realized - its quite bland...

You see, this level needs to serve as a place that introduces the player to the game, it needs to be somewhat exciting and show what the game has to offer. It needs to teach the player main gameplay mechanics and set up expectations, this is what most games do right at the beginning.

First of all, I managed to even confuse myself. The exterior part is made out of natural objects - ground, rocks, trees - it doesn't convey the idea that this place, in fact, some sort of a transport hub between worlds/realities. To do this properly I'd need to make it more artificial and, perhaps even borrow ideas from human architecture of airports and train stations...

The interiors, while looking interesting, felt unnecessary as well. They look more artificial than the exterior, so it fits the transport hub, and such facilities are definitely needed for living creatures, but gameplay-wise there is no real reason to visit them during the tutorial phase.

My mindset was that Dragons would rather use natural materials - make a space station on a piece of land and surround it with a energy shield to hold atmosphere and create artificial gravity. I wanted to stay away from the sci-fi metal panels and other artificial materials that are usually associated with space stations to avoid making this place look too anthropomorphic. However doing that proven to be extremely difficult to get right - it might be too chaotic and uncomfortable for our human brain.

So I decided to re-do a few things and re-think some ideas.

New idea, new iteration.

So looking at my mistakes, first what I came up with was:

1. Put it on the ground, not in space, to simplify a few things.
2. Make the first level be a full-on tutorial and nothing more.
3. As for the hub - let players to choose what level they want as their personal hub, instead of having one that is forced for no good reason.

While we already had A LOT of iterations over the hub-world, the old ideas are not gone or thrown away. Each idea is built upon the previous one, some stay, some morph into something new. Some amount gets discarded of course, but that means those were bad ideas anyway.

For example, if not for these iterations we wouldn't have the idea of four Dragon romanceable "deities" who also symbolize various gameplay aspects. They also come with four different visual styles, technologies and mindsets.

It is interesting how ideas morph into other ideas over time. Its definitely something we should reflect upon later, when its all done perhaps. For now there is still a lot of room for improvement!

Having many previous ideas behind my back I started a new level blockout, having new goals in mind, primarily to make it a nice tutorial level that will introduce the player to the main gameplay aspects.

Tutorial level blockout

Lets start from the beginning, the first thing that happens - you hatch from an egg in an organic vault... yeah we all know this story, this idea is still unchanged.

Except that you start in a cave with eggs now instead, nice and cozy! I'll also put statue of Luna (the Dragoness of life) which will give player the Aura (protection and power kit, also a heads-up-display), another unchanged idea described in the previous post.

After you exit the organic vault you will have a lot of godrays shot into your eyes. The new place is quite expansive, especially vertically. This is the area where player can get accustomed to controls, try out swimming, running and jumping.

By the way, the statues in the middle are eventually going to be the Patreon rewards I've had in mind for quite some time.

When you walk around you might find these rings - and if you try to interact, these display a message "Can not be enabled from this side". Those are shortcut grav-shafts that become useful later on.

The way of proceeding forward is through the illuminated archway with many things subconsciously pointing at it.
I occasionally leave some to-do notes on the map with some ideas to try out later...

More future shortcuts and a door frame. There is supposed to be a closed door and a control panel. It will simply let player know that control panels need to be interacted with to get nearby doors to open, this will be useful in just a moment.

This control panel and door is different. The control panel is broken and it is guarded by an angry tentacle plant. Now the player needs to figure out how to overcome the very first obstacle and in the process learn about the crafting and equipment systems.

The crafting room is unchanged from the hub level for now, just re-using what I've already done for now, I'll experiment more with it.

A desert arena area - the tentacles that were just a bit earlier now have a much dangerous form. Player needs to overcome this obstacle in order to get to the resources, which are required for the door repair tool.

After the door is opened and tentacles have been dealt with, player proceeds forward and can unlock a shortcut.
The checkpoints where player character is revived are sparse, so its best to open a shortcut to have an easier time navigating the area later.

Shaman dragon shrine, much like I described it before. It is used to unlock a relevant skill and then enter a special mini-dungeon where the player can practice and learn about combat.

I haven't designed the interior of that mini-dungeon yet.

After completing the dungeon the player ends up in the very top of the level - the Librarian Dragon wing. This is where the player will get familiarized with the Knowledge Tree and unlock the passage into the next reality.

Enabling a shortcut here is very important, there is no other way of getting up here without running through the Shaman's mini-dungeon again.

And that's it really! Here is some more views of the area from the top. I also quickly made some background (skybox) mountains to signify that this world no longer in the void, but on some strange planet.

Entering the Gateway is the last thing to do on this map, but before player can reach it, there might be yet another, final challenge to complete...

With this new level idea I did not find a place (or reason) to put the interiors I mentioned before. The bar, bath, dorm, and toilet don't really belong here as this place is no longer supposed to be a public transportation hub, more like a hall of trials set up by Dragons to ensure that the consciousness (the player) have all the knowledge to survive in the new strange world.

Those interiors could be used somewhere else instead, I especially like how the baths and the bar turned out, so I'll just find a new place for them in the next reality or something!

The hub world has been in the conceptualization works for a long time, so tell me which one do you like more? The previous calm transport hub, or the new filled with adventure vertically-spread introductory level? Or perhaps you liked even earlier ideas? Please let me know in the comments or in our discord channel!