"Bigsby Bridge" Level Samples and Analysis

The trickiest part of designing outdoor levels is balancing clearly defined borders with an artificial sense of scale. As games have become more open-world, the idea of an "invisible wall" seems to have grown more and more offputting to gamers - which makes borders a design challenge for linear stages. Steep canyons offer a solution of sorts, by using the limits of a player's climbing ability as a sort of metawall. This Big Sur inspired map attempts to utilize this narrow game space for a number of illusions - most notably, a "sunset effect," in which the main directional light seems to get dimmer as the player moves deeper into the level, behind rows of increasingly elevated cliffs and trees.

 The level starts as the player exits a coastal tunnel to find a panoramic view - and a partially collapsed bridge. Following a narrow cliff down the steep sandstone leads to the beach, where a path leads into a densely forested canyon. The idea for the forest portion was to create the feel of a deep woods with as few trees as possible, through use of some subtle perspective tricks.

The largest trees are positioned around the entrances to darker areas, giving them a different look depending on which side they're viewed from. Initially, these dark portions had hanging branches overhead, intended to give them a sort of "inside" feel, but it felt a bit unnatural with tall, slim pine trees as the main feature. Cliffside vegetation is subtly smaller, giving an illusion of distance - a trick which can only be used with organic shapes like trees, and can feel pretty tacky if not done carefully. I will admit that these vegetation experiments are not entirely successful here - while parts work stunningly, I think it would have been more successful with a more open layout.

These ugly placeholders are meant to represent the lime kilns of the appropriately named Lime Kiln State Park - rusty, decomposing structures buried in the forest. While they could certainly benefit from new models and textures, I quite like their dramatic shadows, cast by the now-distant bridge. The eye-like shape on the left kiln marks it as a container for secret treasure, while the (admittedly barely visible) waterfall behind is the source of the river which flows throughout the level.

 Looking back at the bridge, the sun appears to have set entirely - but the directional light hasn't moved at all, nor have the ambient colors changed. This is one effect that I'm truly happy with, and I'm anxious to try it in a larger, more carefully planned, level - preferably with a more attractive color than grayish purple.

While it's not something which comes across in still images, the level also features my most successful attempt yet at tidal emulation. The ocean's water level rises and falls to a regular rhythm, which interacts with the smooth, but slightly uneven, incline of the beach. It's a nice effect, but still not perfect - up close, the animated foam texture ruins the illusion, as it fails to sync up with the crashing waves. It's a step towards something I'd really like to perfect someday - but more practical in an indoor stage which prevents the player from getting too close to the waterline.

There's a lot in here which doesn't quite work - the colors are a little tacky, the vegetation effects are hit-or-miss, and the layout is pretty poor. Given another chance, I would have forsaken the "wide canyon which gets slimmer" approach and stuck with a narrow ravine which zig-zags its way inward, limiting the costly vistas whenever possible. It's a personal goal to figure out how to get the most "forest feel" out of a compact space, as I think "outdoor dungeons" are a great method for giving an open feel to a linear space.