We proceed #Blocktober with one other part we’ve proven off beforehand, the Xen cave. This half exhibits up after final week’s arch island, and exists in the identical “badlands” biome. The aim was to name again to the unique Half-Life, the place water and life collected extra on the inside of the Xenian land formations.
Concepts
The preliminary idea by Xen Lead Chris Horn was to have a bridge, constructed by the scientists with a view to cross the damaging water. The bridge would mysteriously have a bit lacking and the participant would want to lengthy leap the hole with a view to proceed.
The Blockout
We deliberate on having islands all through the cave that the participant might discover optionally. This would create a danger vs reward state of affairs because the participant must leap over water that MAY (OR MAY NOT) comprise Ichthyosaurs.
An preliminary subdivide of the blockout geometry with sculpt adjustments to assist form the cave’s look. 
Feedback
After we added the bridge from the preliminary idea, we finally determined that whereas it might have appeared cool, it result in the entire cave part being a easy straight shot which offered minimal gameplay. There was little likelihood that the participant would fall into the water and it didn’t encourage exploration, because of how direct the participant path was.
From there, we modified the plan. Working as a lot as potential with our present geometry, we pressured the participant to lengthy leap between platforms, added extra apparent sources for the participant to seek out by means of exploration, and made the trail to the exit rather more oblique. This lets the participant absorb extra of the atmosphere and makes them really feel like they’re progressing by means of a difficult atmosphere, as an alternative of merely following a line.
This was a paint over of the prevailing atmosphere by Project Lead Adam Engels, designed to assist convey the meant new appear and feel. The Level Designers did an important job of constructing new gameplay out of the form we had already created. An incredible instance of “creativity through constraint”.
Iteration
Things begin to come collectively right here with higher lighting, some stalactite placement, and underwater foliage props.
Throughout the method, we iterated on the form of the cave to really feel extra pure and assist gameplay. You can see within the picture beneath (brightened for visible readability) that we lowered the ceiling and the peak of the outcroppings on the left and proper of the participant’s view.
Dialing In
By figuring out issues and addressing them in iterative passes, we have been in a position to make the most of extra of the atmosphere, enhance/maximise gameplay, and nonetheless preserve optionally available danger vs reward sections within the playspace. This is a design course of that we’ve adopted all through the whole thing of Xen.
After these revisions, we handed the scene to Level Designer/Artist Spencer Rose to push it as much as the standard of one thing that was worthy of a public display screen shot. He additional sculpted the displacements, propagated the cave with belongings made by the artwork workforce, and used lighting to information the participant by means of the scene; for example, making the opening within the ceiling stand out with lighting and volumetric rays (which subliminaly level to the cave exit). He additionally tweaked the water to look extra “alien” and distinctive. The new water added some a lot wanted distinction to the atmosphere.
We hope this was an insightful peek into our design course of. More to come back for #Blocktober!
