Game Design 1 Week 11 Overworld Design

These last two weeks, we focused on telling a "story" through an over world. Before we got to telling our story, we had to add a terrain material, foliage, and water. All of these elements really fleshed out the world design itself. Believe me, just looking at a landscape with a material is a bit... disheartening to say the least. Adding the trees and playing it in game really made the world feel whole and complete. So how do you tell a story with just a terrain? Well, if you ask me, you need to give your player a goal.

A goal is simply something interesting for the player to head towards. Breath of the Wild is the master of goals. Hyrule Castle, Dueling Peaks, every Sheikah Tower, and so many more are great goals to head to. Then, the game introduces sub goals and stories as you head towards your main goals. These are things like enemy encampments and shrines. It makes for a really great exploring-heavy feedback loop that kept me coming back again... and again... and again. I put a lot of time in Breath of the Wild, and I think my inspiration shows.

I tried to introduce the same philosophies in my over world. So I hope the first thing the player sees IS A HUGE FIRE in the background (I know Game Designers who use subtlety, and they are all cowards). I think that's a really big inviting lead to make the player want to head toward it. On the way, I populated the world with things to check out. A cabin, a lake, a plateau, an outpost, and windmills. These are little baby steps on the way towards the final structure of the fire. I think these baby steps are good at guiding the player while not hand holding them. I want my player to feel like an adventurer, not a theme park attendee. I think having those little rewards to check out (y'know as a treat) do a great job pushing the player forward.

Anyway, Breath of the Wild is awesome, and I'm excited to play test my level out and see how player's react to the world. Maybe they'll take a secret path to the forest... : ).