Level and Game Designer

Felix Faeh

(RPG Prototype)

Uprooted

Genre: 3D RPG Prototype

Type: Single Player

Platform: PC

Engine: Unreal Engine 4.17

Dev Span: Winter 2020 - Spring 2020

Team Size: 5

My Responsibilities: Game & Level Design, Programming, Implementation

My Tasks and Contribution

On Uprooted my main focus was on the design of gameplay and level, the player mechanics and the enemy interactions. As a team, we brainstormed a lot on the design and direction, the uniqueness and conundrums.

One of my main focuses was on designing and implementing the 3C's. I also blueprinted some of the RPG mechanics (leveling system, quest journal, etc.), aside I was responsible for the player behavior, their seed growing mechanic as well as some of the lively plants and minor environmental interactions.

I created a level blockout and placed all the enemies and gameplay elements into the test level, balancing and fixing the gameplay to be fun, adhering to holistic design. I worked closely with the Jafet, our AI programmer to help give feedback and direction on the enemies and seeds.

Introduction

The purpose of Uprooted is to prototype an RPG, with some classical known mechanics, while also giving our own unique spin on some of the core interactions.

Unlike in many games, where you are a young powerful warrior, with sword and shield and ready to storm the world, in Uprooted you are the exact opposite.

You play as Hiroki, an elderly, nature bound and humble person. Hiroki sees a world in which greedy kingdoms rampage across mother nature, irresponsibly taking the all resources they need, regardless of the destruction it has on all surroundings. Hiroki takes it upon himself to save the mother earth.

The player does so, by not directly fighting themselves, but instead by planting seeds from their pouches onto the earth and sprouting them up with their staff into lively plants. These plants come in many shapes and variants and can fulfill many different purposes.

Inspirations

In terms of inspirations, we were drawn by Zelda Breath of the Wild's (Nintendo) elemental system and overall holistic design, since the world felt strongly connected and everything the player deemed logical, also became a consequence. We did not quite program the systems the way Breath of the Wild had done it, but our design was trying to emulate certain elements. A key inspiration for our narrative and world was Princess Mononoke (Director Hayao Miyzaki, Studio Ghibli), in which a nature rich world was overran by the human advancements. We were intrigued, because the technology of humanity in this world had not yet reached industrial or steampunk proportions, but their mindset had, which gave us a feudal age playing field.

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Design

A lot of our focus in Uprooted was on creating something fun that was also holistic with player freedom and emergent storytelling becoming the center of our design. We did not focus as much on the realism, but instead went for a stylized feel and dynamic driven experience.

Player agency was always at the core of our design, but due to the limitations and scope of the project, we had to give up on creating a frame for multiple fun goals, the player could potentially create on their own. We had one main goal, but left it up to the player on how to reach it and found this was a good base for play testing. If we had expanded upon the game, we would have definitely wanted player driven goals to be a thing.

Throwing and blooming seeds into lively plants - our main selling mechanic: The player starts off by throwing out a seed into a distance they choose, they can then press the left mouse button to quickly sprout up that seed into a plant. One that seeds becomes a plant, the plants becomes fully functional and acts upon their design. Blooming up a seed into lively plants costs one seed of that plant type, but the player is given many at the beginning and more down the line through pouches in nature. The player can bloom up multiple seeds in one go, which means throwing a couple or many seeds and blooming them all at once is strongly encouraged. This brought with it a short anticipation and pay off factor.

All our holistic interactions come from plants and the elements they can affect.

Given more time, we would have been keen on creating more unique interactions.

Development

Uprooted was a design prototype that lasted three months, in which we threw a lot of new ideas around on how to approach the RPG genre in a newer light.

We stated early on with a player Zoo level, with a focus on the 3C's, (Character, Camera and Control) where we developers could test blooming the various seeds and see how they might interact with a dummy enemy. Going forward, we then envisioned a potential story, that would fit into a level, and created a blockout following the idea of goals, enemies and progressing, like in a classic RPG. We did extensive balancing and fixed up the project into a playable state, adding in some fun flourishes to the character, to see what the game would feel like, if brought to life.

Level Design

Uprooted's test level consists of one main objective and that is to have nature reclaim the land from the cold barren control of the humans. We created a transition from more woody areas, where the player starts in, into a cold, barren, dark and rocky landscape, caused by the wood chopping and burning, where the player will find more human structures.

We have a main fortress on the enemy side and a smaller outpost, posing a med and long term goal for the player to reach and destroy. How the player reaches their goal is up to them and they are free to explore or turn back at any time. It was important to break down certain areas in the open world, in order to give them special attributes and make them feel different then their neighbors.

Some places can only be traversed, if the player sprouts huge branches, that are sticking out in the landscape. These are more tricky to navigate and focus more on the platforming, while other seconds such as the fortress and outpost are focused a lot on combat, but not without the possibilities of jumping and running.

Level Blockout

hover over image to see paths & locations

Types of Plants

The Mushroom: The Mushroom is probably our most iconic and fun plant, since it propels anything it touches upwards. This allows the player to use it as a trampoline, ascending up walls and buildings and allows them to use a gliding mechanic. This Trampoline however also affects enemies, that are running towards the player, kicking them upwards and letting them take fall damage on impact (or instant death upon flying over a cliff and into the abyss, which counted among the really fun experiences). Another item that interacts with the mushroom is one of the player's plants, namely the cactus. (due to time constraint we could only create one interaction, but would have preferred to incorporate all plants) When throwing the sticky seed onto the mushroom and blooming it up, the cactus will launch upwards, shouting out a battle cry and exploding into hundreds of needles, bursting in a wide cone and damaging everything below it. (I did mention, that fun was a higher priority than realism)

The Corpse Flower: The Corpse Flower created a bigger circle around it, in which everything is slowed, through decay. Another interaction happens, when fire is brought into contact with the corpse flower. Then it will implode a burst towards everything near it, causing a big amount of damage to enemies. Fire can be found from enemies carrying torches (dynamic), but it could also be found in fire stone pillars (static). Some of these can also be found near gates and allows players to break open the gate with a simple burst, giving them direct entrance.

The Venus Flytrap: The Venus Flytrap was not brought into the holistic fold, but serves as a simple melee attacker and protector, with little health points, low damage and fast attacks. The player is encouraged to spam these.

The Cactus: The Cactus is the turret of Uprooted. It is static, but it shoots needles in small intervals towards nearby enemies. It was quite strong and effective in gameplay, since it could shoot at enemies, that were on walls and had a much farther range. Propelling it up on a Mushroom however, made it essentially become a frag grenade, that covered an umbrella like shape. The Cactus became more like kamikazes in that state.