Kairo - World Design

The game begins with a lot of negative space, at first when I went to talk off the first platform I thought will I fall? will this cause my character to die? However this does not happen when I walk off the first platform it feels somewhat strange as most games have something for the player to stand on looking back at the platform with nothing below my feet felt other worldly. This other worldly feeling is helped on by the sound in the game, it's like putting your ear to a seashell and hearing the sea. It gives that chilling but at the same time soothing ambience. Upon inspection of the 2nd platform there is a door to go through. Now in a room, the space is vastly different to the endless abyss of where I had just come from. The space in the room feels small and somewhat just as daunting as the endless abyss outside. Inside there is a chair that with a symbol on it, the wall behind the chair also bears the same symbol upon pushing the two together it opens up the door below which you can then go through. This time this port is different from the one to the current room you're in. The first room had no indication of what you would be walking into however this room has a blurred image of the puzzle you are about to walk into. The arrangement of the cubes around the levels seem to be placed exactly where they need to be. When walking through there are shrine like objects that lead the player forward. The bridge to the next platform is raised, at first this confused me a little bit however remembering that the bridge went up when I walked under a different portion of the stage I was on gave me the idea that maybe walking over it would lower the bridge and it did do that. This was a clever trigger to have placed within the level, it was not to complicated but made sense to be the same trigger to bring the bridge back down. Another puzzle I thought was interesting within this game was the puzzle using the beams of light, it was interesting as to the simplicity of how it was laid out. using the beams of light to connect up, then using the piece of rubble to stop one of the lights so it would line up correctly was a great touch. At first I did not think it was possible as majority of the levels so far have shown little to no interaction with the objects around you. The beam of light triggered here is then seen throughout the other levels of the game. This game is very event driven and finding the visual cues is key to completing it.  The level layout is doesn't try to convince me to go to certain places but uses verticality to try and show the player where they should be heading. From the levels I have played going up is normally the right choice when the player is surrounded by negative space. Generally a big object will be in the distance to which the player will have to go to. To change this up on the odd occasion if you walk into a room you will be on top and having to go down but these portions are a lot smaller and less grand than the going up portions. A portion of the level where the negative space is coloured red it coaxes the player to go up, and just before it hits the point where the player should go it tries to change the pace by making the player feel too heavy to get to the top. At the top the player is then greeted by what seems to be images of destruction of homes and nature. In the background you can hear strange noises and seems to sound like a broken record. The colour red is for danger combined with the imagery seen its like the creator of this game is trying to warn the player against something. The games simple design serves it well to serve up its core mechanics of exploration and puzzle solving.

Reference for Images

Image 1

http://www.gry-online.pl/i/h/4/1735075312.jpg