In game design, there are assets that become the focal point of gameplay. These are known as hero assets. Hero assets are meticulously designed so that every minute detail has meaning, whether that is shape language, an engraving, or even the choice of its color palette. In Land of Lights, monuments fit the description of a hero asset. By imbuing light into a monument, the environment around it dissipates disease, which makes the surrounding area much livelier and colorful. In doing so, the activated monument now serves as checkpoint in case the player ever interacts with a diseased area for too long.
[A deactivated monument with disease-ridden foliage in the surrounding environment]
[An activated monument with surrounding vibrant foliage]
When designing the monuments, we wanted it to tie into the theme of light, since the ability to give and take light between objects is a core mechanic of the gameplay. Many of the initial concepts possessed an orb of light. The orb functions as a container for the light, so when the monument gets imbued, it operates as a beacon and projects the light into the sky, denoting that this monument was cleansed. Additionally, the orb of light contrasts with the rest of the monument, which looks quite mesmerizing. When the monument is activated, the light emitting from it gives it a commanding presence as well.
[Initial concepts of the monument]
You may have also noticed the blocks of symbols running across the activated monument from one of the previous images. These symbols hold the lore of the island, the setting of Land of Lights. Once the player activates the monument, they can interact with the monument and read its journal entry. In doing so, not only is the player playing a game, but they are unraveling a story of how the monuments came to be and what became of the civilization that inhabited the island before Casta and Guppy. By having monuments act as checkpoints, the lore is distributed into bite-size pieces, so after reading one journal entry we hope that they yearn for more.
These design choices informed our implementation of the monuments. To perform light-based transactions, we extended our existing interaction system for the monuments. (An in-depth analysis about how our team developed the interaction system can be found in a previous blog post, “Creating A Robust Interaction System,” if you would like to know more about the finer details.) The interaction system allows the player to look at objects that are interactable in the world and select an action based on the prompts provided. In addition, we implemented a light-transferable interface to the monuments, which has functions such as GiveLight() and TakeLight() that allow our companion, Guppy, to perform light-based transactions with other entities.
[Guppy imbuing light into the monument and activating it]
Finally, monuments have special functions after getting activated, such as cleansing the surrounding environment and setting up checkpoints for the player. Given that cleansing happens after the monuments have been activated, and many plants are affected by this, we thought using Unreal Engine’s event system to broadcast an event to the surrounding diseased foliage would be the most straightforward approach to let the plants know when to become cleansed. The checkpoint system’s implementation is also simplified. Once a monument has been activated, it notifies the respawn system to update the spawn location of the player to a designated spot that is near the most recently activated monument. As a result, if the player does engage with the disease for too long, they will not lose much progress when they respawn.
In Land of Lights, monuments are integral to the game, enhancing the experience in terms of gameplay and storytelling. They appear after each puzzle, moderate game progression, and light up the world. I hope that players can appreciate the monuments for all their worth. One of our design pillars for Land of Lights is “show, don’t tell,” and the monuments express vividly that through activating and transforming the world around them. Without them, the game is incomplete.