The Bridge
The Bridge is a 3rd-person transitional space taking inspiration from high-fantasy dwarven style. The level looks to communicate the feeling of being in an underground dungeon crawl, but with elements at a grand scale.
Year: 2024
Genre: 3rd-Person Dungeon Crawl Blockout
Platform: PC
Inspiration
The main inspiration was a Fantasy Dwarven style structure, deep in the mountains.
Sketch Layout
The essence of the space came from a simple linear sketchbook outline. Once I had a simple top down layout, I took notes on the potential issues the layout presented. Once those were identified, I started drawing out some solutions to take into the blockout phase.
Blockout
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Tunnels were created to enter the level.
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Fog visual effects were used to create the cave-like atmosphere.
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Lights were placed to allow for pause moments in the fog and allow for better player visual, without revealing too much beyond.
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​I decided to have one central line of axes, since putting two rows on the sides made the timing too easy.
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Having a singular line means the player has to focus more on the pendulum swing to gauge the timing, rather than think of the axes as a pair of doors to walk through when they open.
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Not everyone is good at timing challenges. Due to this I wanted to add a secondary solution to avoid the axe traps.
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Keeping with the theme of environmental hazards, I decided to add a jumping challenge with no time elements to disable the trap.​
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As they get close to the end, the lights on the door will suddenly glow with a soft blue light through the fog, drawing them in and indicating an area of importance.
Techniques
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For the lava jumping challenge I used color, spacing, and scale.
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An emissive orange color was used to showcase danger.
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The switch to turn off the axe traps is a glowing blue that to draw the player in.
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The safe ground areas are spaced for a challenging but achievable jump.
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The axes run on a looping timeline so that they swing back and forth.
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Adding this sense of timing breaks up the players sense of the space so that the large length of the bridge does not become a source of disinterest.