Environment Design Tutorial

I described in the previous points what is going to happen in the respective section of the game at the moment as well as in the near future. Of course, you can also start with brainstorming and finding the fate of an island itself. However, the island’s past plays an essential role and can have a profound impact on the environment design! What happens – or has happened – there affected the immediate environment.
Every island has – of course – existed for a very long time under special circumstances. Tragic events may have happened on the island before Law’s arrival, which the player himself didn’t witness. Every inhabitant has their own story that has shaped them. We also want to add elements for each island which make the environment special. Those elements could be responsible for the development and chronicle of the island. The objects themselves can show what fate has happened. The player is not directly told what events have happened. On the contrary, he should be able to  guess what has actually happened. This is intended to create interest and curiosity. Of course, the past can also be brought to light through certain events, narratives or writings. But it is also very important how to present the environment to the player non-verbally.

Now I will explain this point on the example of our first island – Orodir, a small and peaceful northern island. Law´s story starts and will take its course from here. The fact that the boulder-island is very far away from the energy-core means that it is supplied with less energy than closer islands. The energy is responsible for how everything thrives and lives on the island. The result is that life is very sparse and austere, and that it is likely that it the climate will become cooler.

We wanted to think of something special for Orodir – a threatened existence of all its inhabitants. What could have a fanciful impact on the entire island?

After some consideration, we came up with the idea of the tree of life. This ancient tree grew already in harmony with the energy, when the earth wasn’t broken yet. During the explosion the rock was hurled away with the tree. The present island structure simultaneously emerged with this process. The tree reached this extreme size only by the level of energy of the past.  Its roots bind the whole earth around it. However, since the island is supplied with only a very small amounts of energy, this is inadequate to sustain the size of the tree. As a result, it loses strength and slowly dies. Its roots can no longer hold the soil together  and parts of the island gradually break down. The fate of the island has taken a tragic turn for all residents whose future is uncertain. This tree was a determining factor because it has shaped the island’s appearance!

You should consider the following questions:

• How big is the area you plan to create?
• Is there already a rough idea which size the environment design will have?
• Is there a particular factor to be expressed by the size of an island?

It is extremely important to know which capacities a certain environment provides. As a game developer one should be able to imagine how spacious an environment like an interior, a garden or an abandoned cave actually is. Some parts of the environment can even be affected by the story and the gameplay elements. Don’t forget to consider the skills and the team size of the developers. Not every team can create environments in the size of famous games like Skyrim, Witcher or World of Warcraft! A game developer studio should know how much content can be handled. The larger the environments become, the more time you need to fill them with quests, characters/creatures, props, and story elements.

All 8 steps of environment design shown in the content graphic I created above, influence the actual size of an environment. Slight changes to the main story or individual gameplay elements can drastically change the appearance of a level. That’s why you have to keep in mind the other content steps before defining a size.

Kordex will contain a variety of different types of islands in future. Each island will have a different size because each should be unique. If the island will be inhabited, you should have in mind how many buildings are required and what types of buildings they should be. At first, it must be clarified which objects are crucial for the main story in order to be able to estimate their size.

At the beginning of every project you can’t predict the scope of a whole level in detail. Usually the scene is growing with the project progress. Ambient design is an adaptive process and you should keep in mind the step “Size” for the finished concept.

The following advantages of a vertical design can be achieved:

1. A certain emptiness or repetition of elements can occur quickly on a large and extensive surface. Even if you want to develop small islands for the game, you can easily gain more space when you “build” aloft. The player has many more plateaus to explore if you vary in height.
   
2. Your level is compact. Our wish is to design small and cozy islands, but at the same time provide enough gameplay elements. With the vertical axis we achieve both: creating a well-manageable level, though with enough places to explore.

Each story- and environment element has an effect on the island size in Kordex. The island size has to change as soon as e.g. a new building is added or even just enlarged. My recommendation for changes in the environment size is to make a quick sketch for each modification of the level structure to keep the overview. So the game level can be visualized very quickly and the team can imagine how a certain change will affect the island size. This makes it possible to quickly determine the position of the game elements by checking whether they fit into specific game area or not.

The energy of Kordex is a fictional system of natural power which represent the planet as a living subject matter.

Energy enables life in this world.

The energy arises from the core and is distributed to all surrounding islands. Symbolically it can also be compared with a river- or a vein system. The energy only flows within those “pipelines”. The empty space beyond it exhibits life-threatening characteristics. Once the energy reaches an island, a percentage remains on it, the rest “flows” to all nearby islands. The more energy remains on an island, the more fertile and livable it gets. Accordingly the outermost islands only obtain a small amount of energy, since the energy flow is already very weak.

We use this energy behaviour for the creation of our islands. An island is only habitably with an existant atmospheric-crystal. As long as the atmosphere-crystal is supplied with sufficient energy, the remaining energy can be utilised by the inhabitants. If we decide to provide more energy to a new island, it can get a more fantastic appearance in the environment design.  With energy, wonderful new elements can be created.

Through peculiarities caused by energy, this can also influence the role of an island. As an example I would like to refer to our first island Orodir and show you how the energy has influenced the environment design.

In Chronicle & Fate I already explained that the island is held together by the roots of a huge old tree. This tree particularly depends on the energy, because it only reached this enormous size through energy and it has been kept alive with energy until now. Without energy, it would die and the whole island would break apart.

Energy is a really powerful factor in our world. The tree of life in this way can only exist with the power of the core energy. The roots should grow everywhere on the whole island. The villagers can benefit from this. By the use of special growth-crystals, the shape of the roots can be manipulated and brought into a desired form. This can even create a basic structure for e.g. a house.

We also want to emphasize the importance of crystals the inhabitants need to “survive”. The atmospheric-crystal should be placed right in the center so that the player immediately recognizes its importance. As opposed to this, a storage-crystal should be placed at e.g. a village square. This place should become a assembly point for all the villagers where they can procure the remaining energy. This energy is very important for the inhabitants with regard to their daily work: cooking, light sources, heating, water sources.