The Levels
The main center island acts as a navigation point for the player. On it, the player has the tutorial and the end goal. Since this is an exploration game, we wanted the player to have free choice as to which of the four points of interest they should go to first. However, since there is progression in the game, and not all main islands are the same difficulty, I needed a way to direct the player so that they are more likely to go to the simpler points of interest first. I did this mainly through the use of wind currents and elevation.
The wind currents made it possible for the players to gain speed and therefore reach higher areas, so placing the simplest islands further down made it so that the player could reach them without much knowledge of the flying system. Additionally having the first island the player visited at the lowest elevation also meant that from it, it is difficult to reach other higher islands. That meant the lowest island would force the player back to the center island. This was a good thing because the player would be shown the goal of the game. Which is to collect shards and bring them to the center island.
Since Windwalker is an exploration game with 5 main islands, the islands themselves needed to look very recognizable to stop the player from getting lost. We decided to have one central theme for each island that is very recognizable.
Each island is then setup with the general game loop, which is a flying passage to arrive at the island, then a puzzle to reach or open a certain section of the island. Once this is done the player is rewarded with a fragment which brings them one step closer to the goal.
The game is filled with statues and wall paintings, these are used for player direction and story telling. Since the player uses a glider to fly aground the world, it was important to make sure that player direction works from multiple angles and heights. This was done by using wind tunnels, elevation and the themes of the main island.