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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignYour Game Needs a Water Level
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Raquel Hayner
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« on: March 28, 2016, 10:27:12 AM »

The year was 1996, I just turned on my grandmother’s Sega Genesis and popped in a cartridge labelled Sonic the Hedgehog. Of course the first few levels I breezed through with ease, only leaving a blue blur and dust in my tracks. But then the unexpected happened, my Sonic career hit an abrupt end. I hit the dreaded and terrifying water level. Upset and defeated I drifted off into other genres, knowing one day- I would get my revenge.

Fast forward 20 years to my purchase of Sonic the Hedgehog 4- Episode 2. “It’s time to face my fears,” I thought. Maybe things will be different. Long story short- my revenge was not achieved. Yet, I was curious.  I began to question why they even put  water levels in Sonic games. In fact- why would any game include them, aside from games based around fish or the sea. It was then when something hit me and I just had to share my findings. Your game needs a water level: here’s why.

 

Small chunks of something different

Adding water levels allows you to add new mechanics. Some are basic ones that come to mind like the player’s avatar being able to swim or in some cases drown. Adding new mechanics keeps the game fresh but it is vital that the controls and mechanics are simple. Most games tend to stick to what is possible in reality such as swimming faster or being able to jump or climb out of the water.

The purpose of me writing this isn’t for you to make a game consisting of as many water levels as there are enemies in the game, this advice is for small chunks of your game. Water levels break up the action packed main game and allows the players a chance the analyze all the amazing things that just happened before this level.

Water levels can serve many functions. They could be a sport like in Final Fantasy X’s Blitzball, a method of transportation, or a way to break up land masses as seen in the early Pokemon games. They aren’t meant to over saturate your game; just to add something different the player needs to do so they won’t get bored of killing waves of enemies. Just think, if the action is cranked the max all the time then where can it go from there.

Dangers of the sea

It is common knowledge that things under the sea can be terrifying. A underwater level adds a lot of interesting and exciting dangers you could present to the players. Electric eels, killer whales, and great white sharks are just some that come to mind. If you have an interesting aesthetic and work the creatures to match, it could be truly unique and the enemies of your game could be the reason people come back for more.

 

Hidden Treasures

Getting your players to explore should be one of the goals as a developer (at least for most games). You want the player to get curious and see what lurks under the sea. Here the idea of risk vs reward can truly dominate if you decide to take that approach. If you place treasures to find, it will be beneficial to the player for in game reasons but also for out of game reasons because you rewarded their curiosity. Kind of like the idea of the hidden skulls in the Halo series, not all the skulls are rewarding but the feeling of finding them is immeasurable.


Conclusion

I used to think underwater levels were there as an act of outright malicious intent on behalf of game developers. Yet I discovered, they are there so players don’t get bored of the main mechanics, or to reward players who dare explore what lies beyond the surface. Next time you create a game, take a second and think- should I put in a water level? If the answer to that question is yes, then now you have a couple of ideas to consider. Until next time have a great day!

Cheers!
Want to talk more about design? Feel free to email me.
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voidSkipper
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« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2016, 10:47:55 PM »

I think the concept of the water level is not a bad one, it's just that the water level difficulty curve seems to be frustrating as hell, not to mention the mechanics always seem to be unintuitive, that causes the kneejerk hatred of the concept.

Take StarFox64. The water level in that introduces un-deflectable bullets for the first (and really, only) time in the game. It's unintuitive and frustrating when the user has been coached from level one to barrel roll to deflect bullet clouds, and suddenly loses half his HP for doing as he's told.

Super Mario (the gameboy era one) is another one. The whole game up to that point and after it has slick collision detection that feels intuitive. Suddenly on the water level, scraping a misplaced pixel costs you a life.

Controls often become sluggish and you lose that sense of sticky friction - Super Mario 64 was particularly prone to pivoting mario on his axis rapidly when you try to swim against a surface to pick up coins, which made the game seem unpolished.

Games often don't take into account the character's reduced move speed when designing the level, which results in levels that drag on and on. The water temple in Ocarina of Time is an example of a level which should be completable in half the time if you didn't spend most of it trudging along with the weighted boots.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if you want to introduce variety to stop your main mechanic getting boring, you should avoid frustrating the player when doing so. Your main mechanic should be fun enough on its own that you don't need the user to have a sense of "thank god that's over!" just to keep it interesting.
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BeeZee
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« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2016, 04:43:12 PM »

I feel like water is usually used as a negative, but it could totally be a positive if it was spun differently. Usually, it means that your mobility is limited, that you have finite air, and that a lot of your default land abilities won't work properly. Through a different lens, it could just as easily mean that the opposite of any of those: you could have full movement along the Y axis via swimming, a finite air supply could be ignored, and you could have additional abilities that took advantage of being in the water. I think the "default" setting for most games being on land contributes to water being a secondary thing, and thus, an obstacle rather than a blessing.
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oahda
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« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2016, 02:23:20 AM »

My entire game is a water level. Durr...? And thus basically does what BeeZee said. It's the default element, so there are no real limitations.
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7Soul
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« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2016, 08:06:23 PM »

Somewhat recently I saw a SM64 review that puts it straight and simple why water levels are boring:

On land Mario can jump, high jump, long jump, dive, wall jump, ground pound, backflip, sideflip and kick. In water he can swim
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oahda
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« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2016, 08:35:20 PM »

Majora's Mask swimming as a Zora is one of the greatest swimming experiences ever in a game that's not primarily set underwater, IMO. As opposed to Mario, Zora Link can do a lot of cool stuff — including jumping! Due to the way he swims more like a dolphin than a person, it's almost like controlling an underwater vehicle instead. Might not be possible to do the same with a regular human character and have it not look weird. But it is really smooth.
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TitoOliveira
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« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2016, 11:58:02 PM »

Somewhat recently I saw a SM64 review that puts it straight and simple why water levels are boring:

On land Mario can jump, high jump, long jump, dive, wall jump, ground pound, backflip, sideflip and kick. In water he can swim

Yeah. And if you think about it, swimming in Super Mario World is pretty much like an easy Flappy Bird. And it's not really about the quantity of different actions, but how responsive are they compared to swimming.

On that note, that's the motivation that started my game Acheron. Making a platformer that is themed in an underwater world and that plays good on it. At least as good as we can make it.
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BeeZee
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« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2016, 01:00:12 PM »

My entire game is a water level. Durr...? And thus basically does what BeeZee said. It's the default element, so there are no real limitations.

That's really cool! I'm working on a similar project right now, where water is the default. I'd be really into hearing more about your game!
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bittwyst
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« Reply #8 on: May 18, 2016, 08:09:23 AM »

My entire game is a water level. Durr...?
Then your game needs a land level  Tongue
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nnyei
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« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2016, 12:11:46 PM »

Majora's Mask swimming as a Zora is one of the greatest swimming experiences ever in a game that's not primarily set underwater, IMO.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.
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Raquel Hayner
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« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2016, 09:24:28 AM »

I think the concept of the water level is not a bad one, it's just that the water level difficulty curve seems to be frustrating as hell, not to mention the mechanics always seem to be unintuitive, that causes the kneejerk hatred of the concept.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if you want to introduce variety to stop your main mechanic getting boring, you should avoid frustrating the player when doing so. Your main mechanic should be fun enough on its own that you don't need the user to have a sense of "thank god that's over!" just to keep it interesting.

I have to completely agree with you on this one. If we look at the original Banjo Kazooie for N64 there's a water level that causes the same reaction from many players (or perhaps just poor ones like me, haha!  Cheesy) But in my opinion the controls are just so ill designed and slow that is causes such frustration, especially since it relies on old school water expectations such as time constraint to grab air, etc. Whereas in Majora's Mask there really are no limitations outside of those darn slow boots!

Water levels really is just another way to provide a player with a new world, experience, playability, monsters, the works. But designers need to be able able to implement these new changes that excite the player instead of as voidSkipper mentions "thank god that's over". Look on YouTube and the amount of people who say "I hate water levels" really sticks out and is very strange to me. We can easily go out of the normal boundaries of water level design and make something that works for players- a.k.a Majora's Mask or even in Kirby 64- they were so much fun and swimming just had more intuitive controls.
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oahda
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« Reply #11 on: May 25, 2016, 04:22:42 AM »

My entire game is a water level. Durr...? And thus basically does what BeeZee said. It's the default element, so there are no real limitations.

That's really cool! I'm working on a similar project right now, where water is the default. I'd be really into hearing more about your game!
Thanks! c: Feel free to scout through my thread(s) (link(s) in signature). I have a day job for some time now, so updates will be slow if any at all for some time now.

My entire game is a water level. Durr...?
Then your game needs a land level  Tongue
It does, actually! I lied a little bit. But it's very minor, at least according to current plans, and you can't do much more then walk around and look at stuff. Very, very short sections for story purposes.
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