Ereban: Shadow Legacy

After an introductory sequence, Ayana starts the level in a waiting room of a Helios Training Facility. Exploring this space, the player can optionally interact with the workers nearby for narrative hints, showing Ayana's cluelessness about the place and what they want from her is pretty much the same as the player's.

The player will eventually enter the training chambers, where they discover they will have to pass a set of trials in order to become an Helios agent. Design wise, we wanted to make sure that the player experiences everything step by step, so the choice of a training chamber as the first level suited this purpose perfectly. Players do not benefit from too much early freedom / unknowingly missing out info for the rest of the game, so we do a little bit of hand holding in the form of a supervisor that pretty much tells them what to do until they are familiar with the basics!

First and foremost, Ayana is asked to perform the main mechanic; the shadow merge. The design of this room allows the player to freely test how both light and darkness affect this ability, as well its horizontal and vertical traversal capabilities. Some boxes are scattered around to show how the shadow merge can be used to traverse and climb up all types of surfaces in shadow, and not only floors and walls.

In order to move to the next area the player faces the first skill gate, a part of the level design that naturally and logically prevents the player from progressing until they demonstrate that they have learned a key skill. In this case, using the shadow merge vertically to climb up walls and reach higher surfaces. Purple paint stains mark the way to follow, a concept that will recurrently appear through the game to guide the player (this help can be turned off in the game settings).

Immediately after that, the player is set to complete the trial of agility. This consists of a series of platforming pieces involving crouching, running, jumping and the shadow merge. The main goal here is that the player starts getting comfortable with Ayana’s movement metrics, in and outside the shadows.

Later into these trials, we also introduce the concept of the Shadow Climb (being able to ledge grab a lit surface in some situations; a design solution that gives more sense of agility and solves some level design limitations) and being able to merge in movable objects as if we were “attached” onto it, and follow their trajectory to their convenience. The Shadow Merge can also be used to pass through fences, as implicity told by being the only way to reach the key item - a collectable that allows Ayana to craft gadgets - to progress.

During playtests, we noticed that getting used to the stamina limits and recharging metrics was a key aspect to reinforce. That's why, somewhat late into production, we managed to sneak in this chamber, specifically designed to meet this purpose. The player has to stop in the middle platform to recharge stamina and be able to progress.

Up until this point the player has used the shadows in purely traversal and platforming scenarios. Now for the first time, Ayana is asked to take down a “dummy” enemy without being detected. This seemingly simple, linear section underwent many iterations in search of the layout that could best showcase, in an “show, don’t tell” way, the enemy features and weak points. First iterations used the same room for both the back and aerial kill and was too open that the player would easily come up with non expected paths to kill the enemy, that failed at teaching simple features we wanted the player to learn.

In the end, we opted for a more corridor-like approach, in which you can get a grasp of the enemy’s vision and noise parameters in a straightforward way. Covers are placed accordingly for you to crouch behind and get closer, while blocking the light from the enemy lanterns, that will take you out of the shadows. Using the Shadow Merge to jump from one another will get you to the back of the enemy, where you can take it down freely.

For the aerial kill room, an upgraded enemy will first reboot a taken down enemy in an scripted sequence (to show this particular feature from the upgraded ones). This recently revived enemy will proceed to wander in the lower level of the room, unaware of your presence up in the high ground. The player must time their jump with the enemy patrolling so Ayana can land the aerial kill on them.

It is after the enemy introduction that we show the concept of shadow powers, a set of abilities the player can progressively learn in the form of a skill tree. The shadow jump is the first ability that can be acquired, allowing the player to be propelled away from shadow merge. We immediately put the shadow jump into action by reusing a previously seen corridor with another skill gate; a “friendly trap” set by your instructor where you have to get to a platform away from the wall.

Much like the purple paint stains, the concept of the yellow-black striped plaques will, from now on, tell the player about the potential use of a Shadow Jump. The shadows available at a specific area can be so vast that having these little pieces of guidance are truly appreciated by players, as seen in playtests.

While the results from the test are “being analyzed”, Ayana has free time to explore the museum from the facility. Here, the player is offered once again with pieces of lore and worldbuilding that can optionally engage with. This is a calm area, where the pacing of the level goes downhill to give players a break after the test chambers, as well as achieving a bigger impact on the next zone.

As slightly anticipated during the level, Helios intentions aren’t by any means good, and suddenly Ayana finds herself subjected to the organization’s hideous experiments. Luckily, our protagonist can find a way out when the lights blink momentarily due to a power shortage.

The ventilation system gets her to the insides of the facility, where players must now face gameplay situations in which they organically apply the mechanics taught in the “tests”.

Squads of enemies will be looking for Ayana, as the player faces the first real stealth encounter. The combat zones where they patrol offer many different ways of approaching the challenge. It is in fact an area of relavitely low difficulty with the objective of making the player feel powerful, by giving them lots of options through the layout that incentive and make use of all of the shadow abilities at their disposal so far. Whether the player decides to go for the kill or sneak by, reading the environment to find the right opportunities is crucial to their success.

The game punishes going crazy and stopping by to plan your next move is a concept we want to fully emphasize from the beginning: if you look carefully enough, you will always find a way that suits your playstyle. That’s why here, and in the majority of combat zones, the player starts in a vantage point.

As the final traversal challenge of the game, we introduce a new concept that will be further developed on the next levels: the player has to hop in one of the projected shadows of a moving object in order to get to an otherwise impossible to reach platform. There is no voice nor text hint in this final challenge, as we want the players themselves to have a revelation or “a-ha” moment. At this point, the player should have internalized as long as they stay in the shadows, they can perform the shadow merge, but now we tweak it and add challenge by making the shadow movable and thus forcing the player to time their movement so it maches the shadow's. With this final shadow gimmick, we have covered and tutorialized the basics of the shadow merge traversal.

The level ends in a thrilling cliffhanger. With Ayana getting ambushed, her only option left to escape is to blow up the facility by breaking the power reactors behind her.

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