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This is a devblog of sorts following the process of how I created a digital physics based puzzle for a school assignment. We had little to no constraints, so I decided to use the map editing tool in Halo 3, Forge, to create a physics puzzle of sorts.
I wanted to do something that hadn't been done before in Halo's Forge, or at least something that wasn't super well known. So I combined two concepts that have been done before, and mixed them, and now I have an concept that feels novel but it really isn't. I combined a maze with a parkour challenge map.
Initial Designs - Puzzle / Challenge Ideas
The first thing I did is lay out all the possible challenges players would do throughout the maze.
0. Death Pit: Empty space, if player falls, they die.
1. Brute Jump: Player must use the explosion of the Brute Shot to jump over an obstacle they wouldn’t normally be able to jump or crouch jump.
2. Dumpster Cannon/Junk Cannon: A box containing some random physics object where a gravity lift is constantly trying to push it out, the object is restrained inside the box by a custom powerup. When the player grabs the custom powerup they essentially fire the cannon.
3. Palette floor: Floor is made of destructible wood objects that the player can shoot.
4. Thin Ledges: Ledges where the walkable space is extremely narrow.
5. Fusion Coil Rain: Fusion coils spawn and fall from a specific position above.
6. Turret Phasing: By placing a turret near a wall, the player can mount the turret and phase through whatever object in between the player and the turret.
7. Inertia Ramp: A ramp structure where the player must let themselves fall into a slope and use the momentum gained to jump again with enhanced speed.
This is the initial layout for the labyrinth / physics maze, it is a randomly generated maze from: https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/dungeon/labyrinth.cgi.
While I would start creating the level based around this layout, I knew I wouldn’t have enough objects in-game to actually fill it all.
This is the initial level design plan, I gave symbols to each one of the puzzles to easily indicate where they would go into the level editor. The purpose of this paper prototype was not to follow a rigid plan, but to just get a general starting point and idea of how the level could look.
I knew once I went in-game to make it I wouldn’t follow this layout 1:1, but it was a very helpful starting point and felt better than just randomly improvising the map.
Its worth noting that some additional symbols were added, that do not represent challenges but rather objects of interest such as Spawn Location, Man Cannons, and Regular Floor.
Development & Forging
The green line is the layout that I ended up in-game for the correct path to complete the puzzle, and I found that rather than combining all kinds of different puzzles and mechanics it was better to split it in sections to make sure the player is learning the solutions and properly overcoming the challenges. I would then test or reinforce the solution, and then challenge by increasing the difficulty of that same puzzle in some manner. For simplicity Death Pits, Crouch Jumps, and Jump Ramps were merged into the same section/category, and unfortunately the Wood Palette couldn’t be included due to the in-game object limit and time constraints.
1. Jump Ramps
2. Thin Ledges
3. Brute Jump
4. Turret Phasing
5. Fusion Coil Rain
6. Second Thin Ledges
7. Junk Cannons
Development - Testing
I playtested the map with both new and experienced players, a group of 8 players. I set up a timer, estimating that it’d take around 10 minutes for at least one tester to complete the course.
After 15 minutes not a single player was able to complete it. Players not completing the puzzle on the targeted time is a problem on itself, but what made it an even bigger issue is that they were getting stuck at just the second stage of the map. Obviously the feedback on the map revolved around the frustration in that specific 2nd section, and that the challenges overall were too challenging.
So I went back to planning to reorganize and redesign the map based on the feedback.
I first listed the challenges by their ranked difficulty according to my playtest group, from easiest to hardest:
1. Turret phasing
2. Jump Ramps
3. Junk Cannons
4. Fusion Coil Rain
5. Advanced Jump Ramps*
6. Thin Ledges*
7. Brute Jump*
*Advanced Jump Ramps section was created since the difficulty from beginner Jump Ramps differs drastically *Thin Ledges and Brute Jump was generally evenly split on highest perceived difficulty
I then reordered these challenges in a manner that creates a difficulty-to-progress graph-curve similar to this:
The new order of these challenges is the following:
1. Inertia Ramps
2. Turret phasing
3. Fusion Coil Rain
4. Wood Palette Floor
5. Junk Cannons
6. Thin Ledges
7. Advanced Inertia Ramps
8. Brute Jump
And this is the level layout with the desired difficulty curve represented in the base layout of the map. The actual process of reforging the map could take approximately 8-12 hours, hence the map isn’t ready for another playtest yet, however its worth noting that unlike the first planned layout, this is a more realistic blueprint I can follow.
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