Level Designer
To Water
To Water is a third-person linear survival adventure in which the player controls a mother duck on her journey to migrate for winter, and back again, whilst protecting her flock of ducklings.
This was an experimental dissertation project, and my aim was an emotional game that kept the dialogue limited, creating a sensory experience around the seemingly mundane, and portraying parallels between human relationships - and the pain experienced therein - and the simply functional, evolutionary purpose of the duck migration.
The story is of survival - of people moving through and coping with situations in different, potentially misguided ways - and the gameplay reflects this. There is always a risk that the player could lose a duckling, and this tension becomes the motivation for survival and moving forward through the journey. Throughout the adventure of the ducks we see moments of human interaction that, while not necessarily linked through context, convey a narrative arc that reflects and contrasts that of the ducks. People in different situations with the same underlying need - to take control of their situations and start living rather than simply surviving.
I created this game from the ground up, writing scripts and recording VO for cut-scenes, designing levels and puzzles, plotting the emotional arc I wanted to imbue in the player, and making most of the music, some of which can be heard below. The design document for the game is available here:
Download the project, the first half of the game, here:
Game Design
The core game loop in To Water is designed to create a balancing act between the lives of the ducklings, and the energy of the mother, whilst keeping the player moving constantly. The ‘Life’ of the player controlled duck must be maintained in order to move through the game, yet if the ducklings' ‘Life’ gets too low, one will die, creating an aspect of survival - the mother duck can’t die in order to progress the story can move forward smoothly, but ducklings can, adding an element of consequence.
Explore: In open play, exploring is important for finding food to balance this Life, but exploring also uses energy, reducing the Life bar - it’s important to explore efficiently to make sure both the duck and ducklings will survive to make it to the next section.
Find Food and Leaves: Food is important as it gives energy to the duck, allowing the player to reach different heights through jumping and gliding, therefore allowing progression. Food can also be eaten by ducklings, and the player can decide whether to feed the duck or the ducklings. Leaves provide a Life regeneration multiplier when reaching a nest.
Avoid Enemies: Ducks aren’t exactly too high on the food chain, which means that avoiding conflict is a priority if survival is to be achieved. There are different types of enemy in different sections, which inflict different amounts of damage to the Life. If the Life of the ducklings reaches zero, a duckling dies and the number is reset to halfway.
Traverse Land: Traversing the land mainly consists of platforming and using the ducks energy to get to places out of reach, but also means protecting the ducklings and helping them avoid enemies. This is also a big part of the more linear sections and chases, when timing and expert traversal can be the difference between saving and losing a duckling.
Make Nest: At the start and end of each section, the player locates a nest. These act as both checkpoints and end goals - if the duck faints they will go back to the nearest nest.
Narrative Design
The emotional arc of the game is designed to replicate the journey of struggling to overcome change from a state of painful comfort, before embracing the pain of moving on, getting through and coming out better on the other side.
This chart shows the intended emotional reaction on the player against the safety of the duck and the emotions felt by the characters. This ranges in emotion from -5 (the loneliest struggle) to 5 (total contentment) and the journey of the player is mostly situated between that of the duck and the characters. There are moments of strong juxtaposition between the ducks and the humans, such as at 4.3, and I didn’t want to always have them paralleled in order to show the nature of the difference in the relationship functions between them.
The first half of the game represents the struggle of being in a damaging relationship - mostly downhill but with moments of happiness that justify the position. This video is a shortened version of the second level in the game (2.1-2.2 on the chart.) The intention of the level is to open with the feeling of excitement and adventure (the music, the view of the upcoming city) before having it quickly contrasted by the dangerous reality of the migration the ducks are undertaking. The train acts as a warning, whilst the chase scene is the first time a player can lose a duckling, should they not make it to the waterfall in time. We then have the duck discovering the radio in the cave, allowing for a moment of reflection and slowing the pace down. It's a discovery that's both
parts unnerving and comforting, and the writing on the wall is used to create intrigue towards the overarching story of the recurring 'Dan's Tree Fellas. The mother then rejoins her ducklings further down the river and we have the cut-scene, depicting Rosie and her boyfriend. In this scene we see that Rosie is clearly the more involved partner in the relationship, and after her declaration of love is ignored, the ducks swim off into the sunset. It's a bittersweet moment - beauty contrasted by the painful desperation of a failing relationship - and this encapsulates the shifting tone of this introductory level.
The player is never explicitly told who Dan is, but he's built up to be the enemy of the story through the deforestation near his vans that causes the ducks to move on, and the writing on the wall in the cave. The conversation in this video aims to show the man as someone struggling to deal with their inability to address their emotional situation, before later revealing it to be Dan of the 'Tree Fellas' company. I wanted to portray him as a sympathetic character to show that the force of evil in the game is just a normal man trying to survive, and draw parallels between the evolutionary survival of the ducks, and the emotional survival of the humans. There's a hopelessness to be embraced in the relationship between man and nature.