Cliff Side Design Analysis

 Cliff Side is a wide linear campaign space that serves as a level opener. This level is heavily inspired by Uncharted 4 and Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag both in artistic sensibilities and player approach. Its a short section meant to open for a larger level to come; a tropical island made of various natural elements (grass, rocks, caves, foliage, etc). Players will utilize basic and advanced movement mechanics to navigate and traverse over environmental obstacles. These mechanics include running, jumping and climbing. A first-time run-through of this section should take under 2 minutes though there’s room for small exploration which would add more time to this approximation.

At the start, players find themselves at the edge of a beach. Its implied the player must go forward since there’s nothing but water behind them. Weenies are used to great importance in helping the player navigate the level. A weenie is a game design colloquialism for a visual/archetypal marker that draws people to them. Players have line of sight on weenies because they are distinct and offer some guidance and direction for the them to start making their way to. From initial landing, players have eyes on distinct weenies; here’s a breakdown of just a few of them:

1. To the player’s 2:00 is a crashed ship that obfuscates the scenery behind it. Two notable visual aspects is that the deck is visible to the player and that the boat has a giant hole in its hull. Putting two and two together, the player can go into the hull and use a ladder to bring them up to the deck. From the deck they can make their way to the bridge which includes a collectible, an item left behind the sailors that came before the player. From the deck and bridge the player can see where they need to go so the player isn’t losing anything by taking the route into the boat as opposed to walking right up the beach.

2. There is an opening in the cliffs with a distinct colored texture in an enclosed space. It means there is a cave in the distance.

3. This is the primary weenie. Sand, rocks, boulders, cliffs, palm trees and a boat surround the player so this tree is distinct for two reasons: its look and its location. Life, natural or otherwise, exists up there and its on a relatively flat surface. If it wasn’t already clear enough a button press would shift the player’s camera to focus on that tree. That further reinforces the player can and would have to go up there to progress.

4. There is a rock bridge that connects two large cliff structures. The player might not know they have to use it in order to get to the tree but they have it in the back of their heads once they reach the other end of this segment and need to find a way to go up.

Walking up the beach the player see’s two distinct pieces of land separated by a giant boulder. 1 shows a set of elevations and 2 shows a high flat elevation. Putting two and two together, the player will realize they need to use the steps on the left to get to the elevation on the right.

The next part of the level beyond the beach is pretty straight forward. There are two types of environment: the cave and the grasslands. The cave is an enclosed space that adds variety to the landscape and the grasslands is made up of grass, various changes in elevations, trees and rocks. Regardless of where the player goes they will have to figure out how to move past this area of the map.

The ability for the player to know where to go is contingent on them knowing what land can be climbed onto and traversed across. The shape language of the level’s elevated grounds are meant to be consistent with each other, so the player knows where to go and doesn’t get stuck trying to go somewhere they’re not supposed to. For the block mesh, they are represented by hexagonal shapes. The reason I mention this now is because its that very knowledge of traversal elevations that will help the player discover the path they need to take to get up to the tree on the cliff.

As it turns out, the rock bridge the player could initially see from the start of the level is what’s needed to get the player over to the tree. In order to get up there, players must climb up using the climbing footstools and ledges on one of the rock structures. Much like the elevated grounds, Cliff Side makes the climbing surfaces distinct so the player knows what to do when they come across it. Cross the bridge and the tree is the first checkpoint.