Super Meat Boy 64: World 1 Warp Zone and Other Secrets

One of the things I most love to implement into a traditional video game design are secrets, especially when the space to hide them in is three dimensional. I love all of the hidden and mysterious things one can find while exploring Peach's Castle in Super Mario 64 or running through the expansive canyons of Greenflower Zone 2 in Sonic Robo Blast 2. The behind-the-scene chambers found in Portal, the well hidden quad damage items in the simple maps of the fast-paced FPS multiplayer experiences of the Quake era, and the procedurally generated natural wonders of Minecraft are other examples of spatially hidden secrets in video games. So, it would make sense for me to have some hidden discoveries for the player's to find in Super Meat Boy 64.

In Super Meat Boy, there are portals to hidden warp zone levels found in each of the worlds. These warp zone levels are much more difficult than their contemporaries, but yield large rewards including including new playable characters. Each warp zone also had its own theme, usually harkening back to the visual and stylistic limitations (or perhaps, qualities!) of old video game hardware. There are levels that look like a Atari 2600 game. There are levels that look like they belong on the Gameboy and there are levels that would be at home on the Nintendo Entertainment System. And the warp zones are just a small fraction of the hidden content of Super Meat Boy. It seems that Team Meat has just as much of an affinity for providing opportunities of discover to their players as I do.

So as such it be natural for the inclusion of warp zones in Super Meat Boy 64. There is only one warp zone hidden in World 1 and it can be found in a underground section of 1-5. I hide the portal to the warp zone and Rykuta actually created it. I must say, he did a fine job, even though it is hard to make it stand out visually from the rest of the stages using Blockland's rendering engine.

The warp zone of World 1 is almost too graphically ambiguous. It is difficult to perceive both the depth and the edges of the structures due to the bright, uniform colors that texture their bodies. This effect was intended to make the stage stand out from the rest of World 1 as something special. While it might get in the way of fairer play, it definitely adds a new layer of challenge, though a tad thin and frustrating.

In particular, I really enjoy the vertical nature of the warp zone. It is really unlike anything else we built for World 1 and adds a unique pace and flow.

While technical limitations eventually made us scrap the idea, there were also intentions to hide bandages in each level for the players to find. I even had several of the dedicated testers help me find spots to place them and showed me the bounds of what could be done to traverse the environments in search of the bandages. As the overhead map of the levels shows, all of the stages are connected to each other. The binding landscape was accessible, to the dismay of many and to the delight of myself. Its game breaking? Oh no, the player can start in one level and finish in another! And along the way they can find all sorts of hidden secrets. Excuse my self praise, but I call that brilliance. It was unfortunate that the bandages had to go, but in the new format that Rykuta and I had established they would once again be a design possibility. Yeah boi!

Super Meat Boy 64: World 1-4,1-5, and World 1 Boss

Of the levels found in Super Meat Boy 64, World 1-4, 1-5, and the World 1 Boss are probably the sloppiest. World 1-4 suffers from being just to difficult for how early it is encountered in the "game," even though I do think it has an interesting gameplay element. World 1-5 was designed around an idea that was eventually discovered to not work in Blockland's engine properly, and thus half the design is plagued by a visually uninteresting replacement. And finally, since Blockland doesn't allow for complex enemy AI, or for that matter, enemies, (there are mods that do add enemies, but we didn't have the ability to make our own custom model/code for the first boss) we couldn't create a proper boss and thus we resorted to a "boss stage" which would be more sinister in theme and play.

World 1-4 is one of two stages which I had no hand in designing; it was completely designed by Rykuta. It definitely feels as if it was designed by the primary scripter. The main gameplay elements here are disappearing blocks which the player must time their jumps to properly land upon. Compared to the previous hazards, these are more complex in how they are scripted (though as anyone who knows Blockland's scripting system should understand, it is actually quite simple to execute). While the artistic vision isn't as strong, for the stage is contained within a more basic looking square arena, the gameplay is the tight, hard stuff Rykuta is so good at creating. Unfortunately, World 1-4 innocently spikes the difficulty curve. I can attest to this from personal experience, but it was very noticeably seen in the advancement of play testers as well. Everyone got stuck on World 1-4 and almost gave up. Almost though, since the design is still fun to play on, even on the 30th time through.

The gray blocks fade in and out of space in a rhythmic fashion.

The black pit of doom is ugly and almost nonsensical in hindsight.

The last stage I designed for World 1 was 1-5. Now at this point I had definitely started to become well adapted to the tools I was using. One of the things I have learned from playing Super Mario is that a great platformer needs a new idea to be expressed in each level. This design technique is simple and is used in all sorts of games; the idea is introduced in an controlled environment and then, as the level progresses, the player learns to use the element in new ways while the situations that demand its use become more difficult. Rare does this almost obsessively in the Donkey Kong Country series.

The new concept I wanted to introduce in 1-5 was a box that shot out saw blades (taken from Super Meat Boy of course). After some experimentation and the breaking of false hopes, it eventually came to be that due to technical issues too obtuse to describe through text that it wasn't possible to make these work without more extensive modification of the game's fundamental code. Which wasn't going to happen. So a substitute was implemented, and just didn't have the same feel of potential. Basically, the replacement was a electric floor that let out a shock every few seconds. Players would respond to it similarly as they would the blades in that section of the level, but it really stuck out as a tacked on and undesirable solution.

The beginning of World 1-5 starts the player off in a cavern system beneath the rest of the level. It is here where the saw blades where originally intended to be placed.

 The upper level of 1-5 turned out very well; it might be the most interesting part of World 1 in its entirety.

 Fans and spikes collide to test the player's sense of air control.

For some reason I took a lot of screenshots of this stage...

There is not much to say about the boss stage of World 1 except that there is no boss and it is highly unlikely that a boss like the one found in Super Meat Boy's World 1 could even be made to satisfactorily work in Blockland. Anything is possible, but the estimated opportunity cost is way too high for a rather dull result. This part of the forest is drenched in fire and has a floor of lava, because if the history of video games has taught use anything, those two objects = boss-ish stuff.

In the boss stage, the player is jumping from falling platform to falling platform over a pit of lava to reach the end. There was some tweaking that needed to be done to the amount of time before the platforms fell in order to make the stage fit in anywhere as the next step after 1-5 in difficulty, but otherwise, there is not much I can say about it, since the majority of it was designed by Rykuta (I did decoration and tweaking).

And some images of the dark world versions of these stages, of which I have nothing to state. As always, Rykuta succeeds in making very difficult, very fine tuned, yet very satisfying variations of my designs.

Super Meat Boy 64 Dark Worlds 1-2 and 1-3: Difficulty is Difficult to Implement

It is not that there is an inherent challenge in making a game either easy or hard, rather, I would say that the problem is in making the game, whether easy or hard, entertaining. With this mindset, I would say that in my personal experience making an easy design entertaining is far less formidable a task than balancing out a design that uses high-level play fairly to present a hardened player a more challenging situation. Personally, it has always been more fun to design the easy, introductory levels for a game rather than the clever, more challenging ones player's expect to find later on. This is evident in the recent trend in on-the-rails, roller coaster ride spectaculars popularized by the recent single player campaigns of the Call of Duty series. While certainly there is a balanced and fair challenge to be had in the shoot outs, the most exciting moments for the players are always designed to be the scripted scenes where they hope into a helicopter, become almost completely invincible, and then mow down tons of enemies. Perhaps fun on the first playthrough, this experience has little to none replay value. And while it was probably difficult to design visually, the actually gameplay presented is extremely simple and basic.

Super Meat Boy handles difficulty extremely well; while frustration might sink in, the player is always aware that the game's mechanics for platforming are very fair. The level design, as the game progresses, reaches levels of near impossibility. Yet, with enough will and faith, a player who exhibits a high level of play can conquer it. Rykuta and I tried to implement this experience into 3D platforming with our project. Honestly, from all the games I have played, it is one of the few times someone has ever really thought about making a super difficult, twitchy, 3D platformer (though Marble Blast Gold and its sequel Marble Blast Ultra are the two examples of such that I can think of off the top of my head).

And thus, the first time for us to truly display this Super Meat Boy mentality in our project was with the sinister Dark World's 1-2 and 1-3.

Dark World 1-2 is presents large walls standing in the way of previously easy jumps. The players need to master air control to pass through this section.

Spikes make some the more open running space from 1-2 hellish in the Dark World.

The cramped lower tunnels of 1-3 are now filled to the brim with deadly obstacles.

Honestly, Dark World 1-3 was probably one of the hardest levels that Rykuta refurbished. Some of the jumps the player must makes are simply maddening.

Super Meat Boy 64 World 1-3: Interactive Playtesting is Amazing!

I am going to use the World 1-3 as my example to fully explain the playtesting ability of Blockland that I have been continually gushing about in the last few posts. World 1-3 was the 4th level to be made (Rykuta, my partner in crime, made 1-4 beforehand) and by this point I had definitely gotten my groove on with these types of designs. It was time to push things a little further. First, I decided to have the level take place within a cavern, changing the type of space I had to work with. Second, I introduced a gameplay element that required more precision on behalf of the player and their jumping; the saw blade. These were all over the place in Super Meat Boy, so I had to implement them here somehow. While they are square, I used a swirling animation on them to hopefully convey the idea to the player that they are swift moving pizza slicers of dismemberment. Third, I was going to have our growing gallery of fans (there were about four people on the server who were really excited about the project by this point) help me test how fun and difficult the level was, with a particular focus on the placement of the saw blade elements.

In Blockland, each online server has builds (made of Lego bricks) and mini-games (made of rules). With this project, the levels were the "build" and the mini-game was a set of rules that defined check-points, player type (to control speed and jump height), and a few other other things pertaining to the proper operation of a simultaneous platformer experience. Since there is only one instance of a level on the server, players share the space and thus can interact through collision and spacial positioning.
Since the creation of a build is handled live on the server, players can play through a level while the administrators make modifications. For example, this allows me to place a tester at the beginning of a level, watch them play it to the end, and then get direct feedback afterwards. From here I can instantly make a change; in the example of 1-3, I would have to move a saw blade to decrease difficulty and to make the level more approachable.

This is really quite incredible. In the past, especially with single player experiences, designers would have to struggle through far more obtuse work flows in order to make playtesting happen. When the tools are divorced from the playable client, this is the natural result. Thankfully, the trend with professional game engines has been a move towards being able to play within the editor, simplifying the work flow in order to allow the designer to focus on more important issues (UDK is an example of the move in this direction; Source is an example of the more dated approach).

Using the images, try to see that World 1-3 consists of two basic layers. The bottom is a twisting tunnel, riddled with saw blades on both the floor and ceiling. On the top is a large bed of spikes resting on the floor of a more open space, presenting the player with a different challenge half-way through. The second half of the level is hinted at throughout the first with gaps in the ceiling of the tunnel showing that more awaits the player as they continue onward, building excitement for the next challenge.

Super Meat Boy 64 World 1-2 and Dark World 1-1: Using Dynamic Gameplay Elements and Play Testing to Create Obscene Difficulty

After finishing World 1-1, the exciting potential of this creation dawned upon me; I set forth to build World 1-2 with a new found spirit and attitude. In my previous experience, these two emotional modifiers are rather beneficial especially when one is tackling a difficult task whose completion requires focused passion. First, I actually sat down and planned out what I wanted out of this design this time instead of throwing myself into the project manically without purpose or reason. This served as some sort of meaningful improvement. Second, my attitude transformed into a healthy ambition; World 1-2 was to be larger and more elaborate than 1-1. While boring, World 1-1 was surprisingly not completely dismissed by our testers, some even said it was good. World 1-2 was destined to be of a significantly higher quality than this.

The idea was to follow in the footsteps of the Mario series and introduce a new gameplay element in every single stage. In further stages, this element would be used in new and interesting ways and new depth could be found in the combination of previous elements. World 1-2's new element was to be a giant floor fan that would give player's an aerial boost when standing above it. Since the model and animations already existed in a mod for Blockland, implementing this idea and turning it into a reality was easy.

Here is the beginning are of World 1-2. As one can see, the fans give players a boost up to high areas their jump ability can not get them to.

World 1-2's flow has a theme of ascent. Each fan moves the player higher and higher up the mountainous landscape.

Another view of World 1-2's opening segment.

While I worked joyfully on World 1-2, Rykuta was at work on introducing the first Dark World level, Dark World 1-1. Super Meat Boy has both light and dark world versions of its levels, with the latter being considerably more difficult than the former. We decided to follow this concept; after all, it was a relatively low cost way of creating extra high quality content that would challenge hardened players. Rykuta has a talent for making obtusely difficult gameplay experiences, twisting standards that I would normally honor as sacred. He uses the real time playtesting that Blockland provides to fine tune his creations to be a frustrating as possible. This feature of the game is almost revolutionary and I will continue to elaborate further on its use.

 The spikes in this twisted version of 1-1 definitely say to the player visually that they are in for a sadistic gameplay experience.

The color scheme was originally going to be monochrome; however, I decided that color was too important in its role of differentiating gameplay elements. Even here it can be seen that the contrast between the gray walls and dark teal floor helps the player read the environment more effectively. I also think that, subjectively, the dark blue trees evoke a nice "midnight forest" motif.

Super Meat Boy 64 World 1-1: The Fine Gradient Between Apathy and HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING!

A friend of mine, Rykuta, convinced me to join his "Blockland" server to help him create a platforming "challenge" (the "Blockland" community's word for "obstacle course" (GAH, TOO MANY QUOTATION MARKS)) themed around the indie game "Super Meat Boy." I begrudgingly accepted, with knowledge that previous designs of this type were often uninteresting, exploitative, and beyond tedious. Oh, and they were also notorious for being unanimously unfinished. These doubts, as well as my long sustained jadedness towards "Blockland" in general, guaranteed that when I was asked to build 1-1 I did not take the task seriously. I started by creating a small, rectangular area with cliffs on all sides holding the player within; the least inspired creation one can spit forth for a video game. It was insulting. The lack of ambition was palpable, almost embarrassingly so. Well, embarrassing if I had honestly cared or had put honest effort into such.

But here, something interesting started to happen. I had set a precedent; every level that was to be designed from here on out was to be bound by the expectations and the reality set in place by 1-1. Structures in "Blockland" are literally made out of Lego bricks. This meant that for large environments, the types that a platformer would require, one would have to use an excessive amount of bricks to create a single level. This is one of the main reasons why builds of this type had in the past been quickly abandoned. However, one of the later updates to "Blockland" included large, cube blocks that allowed for the creation of elaborate, enormous, and rather square landscapes. These creations were able to be swiftly composed without the interference of tedium and had initially served basic aesthetic purposes. In the past I had used these special blocks before to experiment with a first person shooter concept that blended the ideas of Half-Life 2 and Metroid Prime, crafting a large, detailed mountain environment. Out of sheer laziness, I decided to use these cubes to create my boxy "vision" for 1-1, making platforms and gaps that the player would have to maneuver around using their jumping ability. Pure platforming, yet very elementary.

And so, after the addition of a spawn, a goal (player's rescue Meat Boy's girlfriend Bandage Girl at the end of each level), and some decorative trees, I ended up with this.

Boring; but effective. I played through the level, jumping from rock to rock, and beat it within seconds. The jumping mechanic worked surprisingly well for being operated from the first person perspective. This is when things started to snap in my mind.

Rykuta and I were using a public server, so several players started to join. Of course, their use was to test our creations. Soon, with the introduction of live, dynamic playtesting and the rediscovery of the vast potential of "Blockland," my attitude began to shift towards manic enthusiasm as the possibilities in superb platforming level design began to emerge.

Introduction to "Blockland" as a Game Design Tool and the Making of "Super Meat Boy 64"

"Blockland" is an amazing game because of how many penises have been built in it. Wait, let me explain. I remember listening to a presentation on play in video games and the speaker mentioned that the depth of the play = how long it takes for someone to create or introduce a penis using the tools that the game presents. Obviously this formula should not be taken too seriously since after all it is just a clever joke and not all deep games give the player creative tools (in example, "Go" has a deep space of play, yet its rules do not define artistic tools that allow the player to create images such as a penis; though I am certain a penis has been made out of stones on a "Go" board).

I must apologize, the last paragraph might have been difficult to take seriously.

But the point is that "Blockland" presents this incredible toolbox that allows for the creation of all sorts of wonderful Lego like structures, functional and artistic, and that the boundaries of its creative space of possibilities will never be completely charted. This, when combined with networked multiplayer and a framework for constructing rule based minigames, provides a rather brilliant environment for game design. It is the perfect situation for practicing game design technique and some of the accidental features I have discovered in "Blockland" could potentially be in the future of professional design tools. I will elaborate further in my next post.

In the past "Blockland" has been used essentially as an engine for all types of games: simple arcade games, dogfight games, FPS games, racing games, Role-playing games, and even games that emulate the experience of being on a live game show. Basically, the environments in which this play happens are built out of an infinite selection of Lego bricks and then individual bricks are scripted to behave in functional ways (an example would be a brick that operates as a button; the player clicks it and a door somewhere opens up). Certain gameplay elements such as weapons, vehicles, player types, and terrain must be built outside of the game, but the community already provides so much content in these areas that anyone can hop in and start creating pretty much anything they can dream of. To see some of these neat creations, look into the gallery on the game's forum: Blockland Gallery (Pro Tip: The "Blockland" forums are not for the faint of heart; beware, most of the posters on there are extremely young and well... just look at the pretty pictures).

Anyways, recently a friend and I started work on a 3D platformer within "Blockland" based upon the hit indie game "Super Meat Boy." It was one of those projects that one is thrust into, skeptical of its merits from the beginning, but soon a strong appreciation for the project grows. At the end of this series of posts I will talk about the current state of the project, but for now I am going to go through each level in the first edition of World 1 and talk about both its design, history, and how it uses the great tools presented by "Blockland." It should be noted that this version of World 1 has been completely scrapped for a better, more thought out rendition. Nevertheless it still is of a good quality and it presents many things to both see and learn.

(I'm going to assume this image is hard to visually parse, so I'll explain what it is. This is a top down view of both the light World 1 and the dark World 1 found in the early rendition of Super Meat Boy 64.)