Interview with Arkeus

Golem: Arzea was first created for a Ludum Dare. What challenges did that present for creating this kind of game--a platformer with a sprawling map full of discoveries to make?

Arkeus: The most obvious challenge was the fact that a game like this is strongly tied to the content, and in 48 hours you don't have a lot of time to focus on creating content. I decided early on I didn't want the world to be procedurally generated, as that normally makes the world much less interesting. Because of that, I focused on a way to take a content creation method I had done before (building a world based on a bitmap) and spent time improving that to allow me to quickly create a full world, without sacrificing details.

Another is that small changes can require a lot of testing, and it's too easy to spend a lot of time on testing. For example, you might fix a bug that significantly changes the output of a weapon, and you'll want to see how that affects the use of that weapon throughout the game. Unfortunately, retesting the entire game for every small change like that isn't feasible, so being able to figure out when testing was required and when it could be delayed was a challenge.

Also, not specific to Arzea but to making any game on a tight schedule: Not trying to include features you won't have time for is painfully hard. Sometimes you'll come up with all these fantastic ideas that you'll want to include. However, including them normally ends up with an unfinished game at the end of the competition, since with so many additions you just couldn't finish everything. I think this will always be a challenge, but as you participate in more game jams and develop more games, you definitely start to get a better feel for what is possible in a given time frame.

Golem: In Arzea, players can find items that will upgrade elements such as player health and jump height.

Why did you decide to implement upgrades for these aspects? In other words, what benefits and opportunities did each type of upgrade afford you as a developer?

Arkeus: One benefit that applies to all the upgrades is the sense of increasing power. As players progress, they becoming more powerful, which not only gives the player a good feeling, but it also allows the player to go back to previous areas with less challenge. This helps promote more searching for secrets, without the same level of difficulty when originally working your way through the areas.

Jump height allows a sense of gating that allows a level of progression between secrets. By placing some secrets behind ledges that require a certain jump height, it provides a small tier of linearity to finding upgrades. This lets you make the assumption that in order for the player to get these upgrades, they will have at least a certain level of experience. By placing harder challenges behind these gates, it prevents the player from getting frustrated by running into a challenge they can't overcome too early. However, rather than a gating for challenges, arzea more used jump height as a gating for backtracking. Some areas you pass might have secrets out of reach, and by not allowing you to obtain all the secrets your first pass through, it forces the player to think about revisiting earlier areas in order to obtain all the secrets.

Health provides a different aspect depending on the skill of a player. For a player who is less skilled at platformers, it provides a means to allow them to progress further. If they reach a challenge they can't overcome, backtracking in order to increase their health pool will directly benefit them as they try to complete the game. For players with a higher skill level, it allows the player to play more recklessly. Once they've obtained enough health, they no longer have to worry about dodging obstacles between checkpoints. It's an upgrade that has different benefits for different players, which is always nice to include (a lot of times it's hard to cater towards different audiences).

Speed makes you feel more powerful by helping you dodge obstacles, but it also gives players trying to collect more secret items the feeling that the slowness of the game isn't holding them back. Even though it might become harder and harder to track down the remaining pieces, as they do it they become faster and faster, which helps alleviate the level of frustration they might encounter.

Golem: On the flip side, are there any downsides to their inclusion?

Arkeus: Speed has a downside where it increases the skill required in order to move accurately. It's kind of like watching a skilled and unskilled player play through a game that requires them to cross a tiny ledge. The skilled player might run across quickly, while the unskilled player will make slow movements to get across. The faster you move, the quicker your responses must be. This makes speed upgrades possibly harmful to the player. To help combat this, there isn't anything in the game that requires you to collect the speed orbs, other than for 100% completion.

Also, simply by including upgrades, many players feel obligated to find them, but don't want to. Some players simply want to progress through and complete a game, but when completion requires many optional goals, they might become disheartened and not complete the game.

Golem: One distinctive aspect of Arzea is that many upgrades are placed behind hidden wall passages.

Why did you use this as a method of hiding upgrades? In other words, what makes it a compelling mechanic?

Arkeus: Hiding things between hidden walls is something that people can easily pick up on. You can place powerups hidden in plain sight, which allows most players jump to the conclusion about how to reach it.

Golem: The hidden passages become harder and harder to find over the course of the game. How did you pace these?

Arkeus: I think one of the benefits of this is that because it's not completely linear, you'll often find easier ones sooner than harder ones, which, even if not true, gives the illusion of things being laid out well. It's one of the benefits of making things less linear. I simply spent time trying to spread out the hidden items along the difficulty curve, rather than trying to make "later" ones (which might be hidden in earlier areas) harder.

Golem: Are there any other notable methods of hiding upgrades in Arzea that are worth considering?

Arkeus: I think this is a huge downside to the upgrades, in that pretty much all of them are hidden in the same way. They are either hidden behind a gated area that requires an item you obtain later in the game (and thus must backtrack for), or are within a hidden passage. More interesting ways of hiding things, such as with puzzles, would definitely add a better dynamic to this.

Golem: In general, how did you pace discoveries over the course of the game? In other words, what were the key elements that differentiated the placement of an item at the beginning, middle, and end of the game?

Arkeus: I actually tried to lay them out pretty evenly. The beginning, middle, and end all have easy hidden items and hard hidden items. This allows even players who do not want to put forth a lot of effort into searching for hidden items the ability to find things up until the very end. In terms of how hidden I made them, I wanted to make it so there were enough "easy to find" items that make it a reasonable difficulty for the average player who might only pick up those. This allows most players to complete the game without needing to focus on searching for items if they wish.

Golem: Arzea also offers multiple weapons to discover.

What were your primary concerns in building the weapon selection?

Arkeus: The goal with weapon selection was to make weapons that were relatively balanced, but provided different play styles. Weapons like Fireball were for players who liked full control over how they attack, while weapons like Shock allowed for a more random element (but with the possibility of higher output). In addition, the goal was to make weapons that could be useful for different kinds of barriers. This is something that could have been much more pronounced, as there are very few places where you actually need anything other than your main weapon of choice. For example, more places where freezing water, shocking levels, or dousing water is useful, would definitely help out with the variety of gameplay. With Ludum Dare games (and even versions that I improve and release post-competition), I try to keep the scope very limited. And then, depending on how I liked the game, I can use what I learned from the LD version in order to make a sequel (or a similar game) with all the improvements that came up as features I'd have liked, but didn't include due to the scope (or time constraints).

Golem: How did you balance the different weapons amongst one another?

Arkeus: This was mostly through play testing. Running through the game with each weapon allowed me to try to get each to a point that the difficulty felt relatively even by the end of the game. I think the biggest challenge in this regard is that some weapons are much more suited for different situations. Sometimes you have a close range big target, and spells like Douse end up doing much more damage. Trying to not use every "unbalanced" aspect like that to balance weapons was difficult, because sometimes a weapon just felt very over/under powered at a specific point, and it was necessary to try to understand whether it was situational, or whether it was something that would affect balance throughout the game.

Golem: This one's a little abstract. In terms of video games on the whole, which is more important to you: the intention of the developer, the experience of the player, or the essence of the game in and of itself?

Arkeus: I think the essence of the game ranks highest for me. When I make a game, my primary goal is to make something I'm proud of. I might not like playing it, others might not, but I want it to be something that's more than "just something I made". Even if it's a terrible game, if there's something about it that I can point to and be proud of, it's good enough for me. This is the main reason I have quite a few things I've made but haven't released. Even if I think there are people who would enjoy playing it, if it's something I'd be ashamed of, I tend it just sweep it under the rug and move on.

However, even if that's my focus, you really do want to try to make the most of all 3. One of my projects is in a genre that I don't particularly like to play, but I've always wanted to make. So while I'm obviously trying to focus on making it a great game for players of that genre, I'm constantly trying to find ways to make it more appealing to me. If I, who don't like this genre, can make a game in the genre that I enjoy playing, that I'm almost guaranteed to increase the size of the audience who will like it. Being able to pull in people from outside your target audience is always a great thing with game development.