Game Design 0.4

We're at the stage where we need to start thinking about how we're going to design the levels for our game. Since our game is in space, the level design will have to be different than for a game that has a floor and walls. That doesn't mean we don't need to put effort into designing the level. The player still has obstacles to overcome and a goal to reach.

Space is endless, but the Havok World isn't, as Harry found out the other day. The Havok world space is defined by the .hkx file which you export from Maya. It creates a scene with Havok objects that correspond to each of your object meshes in the scene. When it does this it also limits the world to a size that fits your scene. After you load everything into TwoLoc and make it run successfully, it becomes apparent that if an object exits the Havok world, the program crashes.

Dan Buckstein explained that some games get around this despite having an "open world" by killing the player if he exits the world and re-spawning them in a different location. Take Battlefield 3 for instance; if you get near the edges of the map, you receive a warning to return to the battle and a countdown. In other games there is a winding track and nothingness beyond the track. If you fall off the track then you are re-spawned somewhere on the track before you fall off the Havok World. Those measures were put in place to prevent the game from crashing really hard.

Our game is in space though. We want it to feel vast. I'm not sure how we'll constrain the player. Perhaps we will move everything around the player while he remains static? Perhaps we will place invisible walls that you cannot cross? It would be hard to tell if you are moving or not in space unless you are heading towards other objects (such as spaceships or asteroids) which would be at the center of the world.

The goal of our levels are centered around destroying the enemy mothership while avoiding being destroyed by the enemy fighters. There will also be asteroids that the player must watch out for. We will probably place everything in the middle of the Havok world, so that the only way the player would come near the edges of the world is if he was fooling around with the game and seeing how far away he could go. Still, we must prepare for this. Exiting the world is a game-breaking error. No one is allowed to leave.