This exercise uses the Stack O Bot pack that comes free with Unreal 5. The purpose of this level is to practice the roughly three stages of the game: teach, test, and challenge.
The greybox and detailing of the level is shown. Before and after.
Beginning of the level (Stage 1 - Teach)
Stage 3 - Teach, Test and chanllenge
Stage 4 - Challenge
In the making of the level, I had some difficulties. An asset with a liftable platform didn't fit my design needs for the final level. The problem was that I wanted the platform to rise to the highest point when the player stood on the button. And when the player leaves, it will automatically return to the starting point. The existing asset, however, moves the platform every time the player steps on it, which means the player doesn't need to keep stepping on the button. Simply stepping on it and coming back down will keep the platform high. My design, on the other hand, wants the player to print a robot to stay on the button all the time, thus testing the player's resource control (resource in this case being the number of robots a player can print).
The first thing I tackled was the button that comes with this liftable platform. I wanted the player to control the platform using only the external buttons. So I cut the link between these two nodes in the blueprint.
After that it was time to solve the main problem of stepping on the buttons to maintain the height. I found this part in the blueprints and determined that it is responsible for controlling the platform's elevation. This is because I want the player to keep triggering the function that reaches the end position when stepping on it. So I added an Event Tick to help me realize this idea. Then by replacing a couple of nodes, I realized that once the player leaves the button, this Event Tick is interrupted and instead the platform starts to descend. Below is a screenshot from the blueprint showing how I did this.
Before：
After：
Beat flow and difficulty in level design
At the beginning of the game, I wanted the player to learn to "Print yourself to hold the buttons", a core mechanic that I used throughout the levels. In a simple button stomping tutorial, I had the player try to print themselves stomping on a button to open a door. Since the "Print" prompt is always in the bottom-right corner of the screen, I didn't have to worry about the player getting confused about what button to hold. Also, the activation of a respawn point teaches the player where they can update their respawn location to help them not have to run a long distance after each print.
I then proceeded to add the Test section to the level. By the way, the player was also introduced to the moving platform. In this second part, the player will also need to print two of themselves to stand on the buttons that activate the two moving platforms to start moving. Then the player needs to start a practice with his jumping and the use of the rocket pack. Meanwhile, the design of the door and the red light is the same as the previous Teach section, so that the player can better understand the mechanism of "the door will open when the red light is on".
This is followed by a Teach on controlling the fans, which also requires the player to print themselves to activate the different fans in order to pass the level. There is also a test on jumping and rocket packs, and this is the end of all the teaches and tests. Now comes the final Challenge.
In the final Challenge level, all the mechanics that the player has been exposed to before will be used, and there won't be any new ones. The player will need to integrate all of the previously learned mechanics to pass the level. The idea of solving this final puzzle isn't really that hard. The player needs to keep printing themselves to stand on top of every accessible button. In turn, each button activates a mechanic that sends the player to find more buttons. When all the buttons are activated, the door opens. The player can then step onto the moving platform to reach the end of the game (win).
Comments