Into the Matrix
While we don’t want to spoil much of the story or lore about the world, it is quite easy to see where the inspiration comes from regarding how the players start and end a level in Just Read The Instructions. This white room where everyone gets ready for the fight is a small hint to what is actually going on for the characters in the game. It’s obviously a reference and homage to The Matrix, although the cinematic version might have a leg up on visual quality... In any case, the players start off in this seemingly infinite and empty room. They grab the weapons they want to use and then they go through a portal, a door, a rip in spacetime or whatever one might call it. These are our portals and they play an important part in the game.
Neo and Trinity grabbig some weapons
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The player starting the level in the white room and then goes though a portal
Guns are always good to have
The players get to equip themselves with a few guns in that first white room where everyone starts. Then they need to use them effectively and sparingly, because as mentioned in a previous dev blog, the weapons break when they are used enough, especially when they are used with high power. The portals then come into play again when the players need more weapons. Because at the start everyone gets one portal to use later in the level for whatever problem they need to solve. When this “portable portal” is placed in the level, it leads back to the first white room and now there are more weapons to pickup. This really encourages cooperating and sticking together so that when one player uses one portal, all four players can go back together and bring new weapons.
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The player going back to the white room for more weapons
The ‘design-rabbithole’ of portals
There are quite a few intended and unintended consequences of these portals. One intended is that the players can temporarily hide in the white room to catch a breath or to heal a bit. But there are other consequences that we did not first think about, but are quite intriguing to keep in and see how players will use and abuse. For example, if there is a portal open and someone else opens another one, the new portal will replace the connection to the white room, rendering the previous portal non functional. So if a player enters through the first portal and waits in the white room for a new one to be placed, going back out will now be through the newer portal, wherever that is. Lastly, an important limitation of the portals is that they are active for only 30 seconds, so one better return before that, or else who knows where one might end up?
We hope this huge wild card turns the design just enough up side down to make it feel really interesting!
And don't forget to sign up for our beta!
www.Knackelibang.com
/ The Knackelibang Team