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Flight of Icarus
An Open World experience
Introduction
An open world experience focusing on movement, world design and level flow. Collect feathers that makes your glider reach longer, unlocking new areas of the level. Solve puzzles and fight enemies to collect all feathers.
Specifications
Time Spent: 6 weeks half-time
Engine: Unreal Engine 5.1
References: The Legend of Zelda: BotW, The Pathless and A Short Hike
Tools used: Blender, TreeIt, World Machine, Inkscape
Project Summary
An open world
built for movement
Making moving around the island feel fun and engaging was my biggest focus. The goal was to make the landscape feel like a playground.
The objective
You play as the mythological figure, Icarus, and have crashed on an island with your broken wings. In order to fly again, the player needs to collect feathers that are scattered across the island. To find all feathers the player must explore the island, defeat enemies and solve puzzles. With each feather collected, Icarus is able to fly further and overcome obstacles that previously were impassable. The game offers a mix of action, puzzle-solving, and exploration gameplay as players navigate through the island and its various challenges.
Overview
The Process
Conceptualizing
I wanted to create an open world that was fun to move around without using vehicles. I naturally thought of a glider since I thought gliding down a hill you have just traversed would feel so rewarding!
Designing for a glider
In order to get the most out of the glider and to keep the player engaged, I planned on designing the landscape so that the further out from the Hub the player goes, the higher the elevation gets. The idea was that once the player had explored an area and found all feathers there, they could use their new extended glide to get back to the center of the map in a fast, convenient and fun way.
Linear or revisiting gameplay?
Originally I had a more grand vision for this experience, containing NPCs, quests and crafting. When planning my personal projects I always like to take all gameplay aspects into consideration. However, since this is a level design portfolio I decided to focus purely on that.
Because of these original ideas, the level flow was more dynamic than the more linear flow the level ended up with. Once you have collected the feathers in a certain area there is no gameplay incinuation for the player to stay there. This was something I wanted to avoid and is why I focused on vertical gameplay and to make it feel rewarding to fly through a cleared area.
Generating the landscape
I wanted to use World Machine for generating the landscape and tried early on to integrate it into my workflow. I created a mask to get an island shape and made three different biomes. The result was decent but I quickly realized it would take too long to make quick iterations and since this is a small/medium sized island I thought the Landmass plugin in Unreal Engine would fit better for my iterative workflow.
Finding a sense of scale
I used real life locations as inspiration and references for how long distances the player can walk and still feel engaged. Here is an example from a park and a residential area close to my apartment that I frequently walk through. I used these to map out interesting paths and find a suiting scale for the island.
Blockout of the biomes
From blocks to landscape
Once I was happy with the scale of the island and the location of the main Points of Interest, I started working with landscaping. In order to be able to iterate quick and conveniently I used the Landmass plugin.
A non-destructive workflow
Landmass is a procedural and non-destructive way of building a landscape. I have used this plugin a lot throughtout my studies and have found that it suits perfectly with an iterative workflow.
Design Philosophy
Guiding the player
In an open world the player is free to go wherever they please, but to offer some guidance towards the main goal, I used geometry and gameplay to direct the player.
Using the landscape
In the initial reveal of the level I present the player with the Main Goal, The Ruins. At this reveal I wanted the player to feel like they have an exciting and vast environment to explore.
I made sure to elevate The Ruins so that they are visible from multiple areas of the island and so that the player instinctively wants to go there.
Secondary objectives
A great way of leading the player without explicitly telling them to go somewhere is to use gameplay like combat or puzzles. In a thicket of trees and shrubbery I placed an altar with pots that the player can break and be rewarded with a feather as a sort of breadcrumb to lead them deeper into the woods, eventually leading them to a highground that will let them progress further into the level.
Framing the Objective
Using the location of secondary objectives I could also nudge the player in the right direction in a natural way. I think aiming towards only using diegetic means of guiding the player is one of the most important goals of a level designer.
Drawing inspiration from architecture
Personally I get a lot of inspiration from architecture and find that a lot of architectural concepts and theories can be applied to level design. I will go through some points that helped me in realizing the design in this chapter.
Datum
In architecture, a datum referes to something which other objects in a composition can relate to. For example, it could be a village built next to a lake, the village relates to the lake. In this context, the river that breaks through the landmass is the element which binds together all of the islands. I believe a strong datum helps the player navigate their way through an unknown environment. It is also a great way of dividing a landscape into distinct zones, which I will reflect on later.
Connecting multiple paths in a memorable way is important for the player's mental map. These places act as mental waypoints. They are designed to make the player stop and think for a second.
In the example on the right, the player follows the Main Path which leads to a broken bridge. The player then is encouraged to explore the nearby ruins and is lead further into the woods, unlocking a new path forward across the water.
Nodes and Connectors
Served/Servant Space
The idea of served and servant spaces is that served spaces are places where people stay and are active, whereas servant spaces supports these spaces. A typical example would be a hallway leading to a kitchen.
This concept is something I thought a lot about when designing the island and the distribution of Points of Interest and pickups. If I noticed that the paths leading to an interesting location were too long or uninteresting, I would add something to keep the player engaged.
Paths
Main Path: The intended path for the player.
Optional Path: Small detours that sprawls off the Main Path.
Perceived Path: The path the player thinks they should take.
Desired Path: The path the player wants to take.
Biomes
I wanted to create a few different biomes that could give more identity to the different parts of the island. They also help in terms of progression, giving the player a sense of completion going through each biome. I also wanted them to be fairly contrasting and emphasizing each other.
Forest
This is the first zone of the level and almost acts as a tutorial level. In this zone the enemies are fewer in number and are placed in unchallenging settings. All puzzles are introduced in a simple way. I did this so that the player can learn the mechanics of the game so that they are prepared for more challenging situations later on.
Plains
The plains is a much more open space and the player most likely has more feathers once they are here, meaning they can use their glide for a longer duration. Here the enemies are greater in number but the player also has a lot more freedom and space to engage in fights however they want.
Mountainside
The mountainsside is more barren than the other zones but has greater elevation, meaning the player has a chance to really get good use out of their glide. Since it is located at the edge of the island, the player typically has a fairly large amount of feather meaning they can glide through the environment in a satisfying way.
Ruins
This is the end-game zone of the island and has a lot of enemies and a larger scaled puzzle. If the player clears the whole area and completes the puzzle a boss will appear.
As sort of a throwback to one of the earliest assignments at The Game Assembly, I used the layout of the iconic Acropolis of Athens as inspiration for the ruin site.
Gameplay
Gameplay
I wanted the gameplay to highlight the movement of the glider and decided to implement a crossbow. I had a vision of the player gliding down towards a group of enemies and taking them out while in mid-air. I thought this would give the player a feeling of superiority and mastery of the environment, so I built the gameplay areas with this intent in mind.
Exploration
Rewarding players for exploring a game world is something I think is very important. Curiosity is something to be encouraged and that is why I have focused on adding pick-ups at small off-shoots from the Main Path. It makes the world feel more alive and exciting.
Puzzles
Exploring the game world is just one dimension of an experience. Making the player interact with the world is just as important. That is why I decided to add small puzzles that rewards the player for actively interacting with their surroundings.
Combat
Of course using combat is the most obvious way of keeping the player engaged. I did not want to focus too much on combat design which is why I made these simple eyeball enemies that fly towards the player on sight. Originally I wanted to have different enemies so that I could create more interesting scenarios, but it was not that highly prioritized given the time I had.
Gallery
Reflections
First off, I had so much fun working on this project! I would have liked there to be more gameplay features like crafting and quests as I mentioned before to make the world feel more alive. It would have changed the experience a lot and the island would probably look a lot more different since the game loop would have also changed. However, with that in mind, I actually think deciding to focus on movement in an open world was the best-case scenario.
Even though I have created open-world levels before, this is something I truly have never done before, and I am super happy I got to fully immerse myself in this project for six weeks.
There are some things that could have been improved. For example, the enemies could have been more elaborate to create more exciting combat scenarios. As far as the gliding gameplay goes, after playing the finished level quite a few times I wish I had doubled down on gating certain areas off even more to really highlight the need of getting a certain amount of feathers and making that experience even more rewarding by allowing the player to soar across a wide river or down a mountainside.
Working with an open world is very tricky but extremely fun, and it is something I hope I will get the chance to do again!
Playthrough
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