Francois Roughol - Level Design Portfolio

Interview conducted by Thomas Cross for Gametopius

Q: You were a level designer on Prince of Persia; what parts of the game did you work on, and what were your goals in these various areas?

A: I came in for the final year of production, right as we ended pre-production stage, to design and script five of the Ruined Citadel levels, and script 2 other levels in High Castle. Ruined Citadel, ended up being used for the E3 demo and therefore got to an almost finished stage faster than all others. Having finished most of the level design by then, the region also ended up being the test subject for many of the subsequent gameplay features we implemented. In the end, it was also the first region to contain light seeds, the compass system Elika uses to show you the way, and traps. (Traps were obviously thought of when designing the levels, but only implemented later on)

My goals for this region was to design maps that would help drive the story of the Hunter forward, while maintaining key settings and gameplay elements for each area. In this game, each fertile ground area is a separate level, but so are the connecting junctions between each of them. One of these junctions, between Marshalling Ground and The Sun Temple quickly became a level focused around cracks for instance, and keeps its own unique style separate from that of either connecting levels.

On the other hand, the collapsed bridge connecting The Windmills to The Hunter’s Lair had to be fully integrated with the design of the lair itself, as this pair of levels were deeply linked in the story and gameplay.

Q: Since PoP has come out, it’s been praised and ridiculed for its writing and acting. As somebody who loved all both of these elements, I’m curious to know what you thought of them? Did the Prince and Elika seem like believable people to you, and were you at home with the Prince’s tone and delivery (here I’m specifically addressing the English language release).

A: I think I, very much like many PoP fans, have a love-hate affair with the Prince’s voice. It goes back to the original game, which let each of us define what the Prince would sound like should he actually speak. Some have suggested we should have gone all the way and cast someone that can speak Farsi, others said Naveen Andrews would be perfect for the part, everyone has his own personal favorite.

I still would have liked to see the reactions of the fans had Nolan North not made Uncharted a year before. Everyone saw his name come up and drew definitive conclusions that sometimes were just not there to be made in the first place.

In the end, the acting delivered was just fine, and the game’s writing is much more debatable. The style conveyed in this game was a lot different than what was portrayed brilliantly in The Sands of Time, but this entire trilogy was done and we needed a new approach to the franchise.

Q: People specifically took issue with the Prince’s mannerisms, and how they were seemingly at odds with the fantastical, magical elements of the story and world. Was it the intention of Ubisoft that he sounds so much less “fantasy-like” than his fellow characters, or was that something that occurred naturally as the character was fleshed out and brought to life?

A: Others would have a much more educated answer to give you here, but my take on it is that it really actually serves the game and the story as the Prince emerges out of the storm into this world with no clue what role he will play in the grand picture. By setting his manners and tone so differently than those of the people that actually live in this world every day, it gets the message across that you were just never supposed to be there but for the will of the Gods.

In that sense, the Prince comes across to me as a young man who has lost his childhood spirit and refuses to believe in fairy tales anymore, until he gets to live one through to the end.

Q: Its acrobatic gameplay especially has come under a lot of fire, mostly for being too simple and flowing. Since you were tasked with designing the fluid motion of the Prince, how do you feel about this last set of criticisms? Did his movement style and the way he responded to player input match with your goals for him, or do you wish you’d made changes pre-release?

A: The game flow was exactly what we wanted, and what we had been asked to do. While many seasoned gamers expected to have more of the same, it became clear to the team that we now had a chance to learn from the criticisms from the previous trilogy and expand the experience we provided to more of our customers. While I can definitely understand many of the criticisms that have been expressed, being an avid Sands of Time fan, there is a line to draw when the game as good as many have found it to be becomes a burden to many others and remains unfinished.

Do I think we went a little overboard? Yes absolutely. But the changes I would make now don’t necessarily impact the fluidity of the gameplay in terms of pure platform placement. The structure of the game imposed this kind of approach. The changes would include not counting on the story to deliver the traps one by one, rather have all of them in all the maps from the get go. That way you insure that all players have the same experience. As it stands, people may be extremely lucky and get to the specific points the traps are released at the very end, making a majority of the game essentially traps free.

But again, the major change in the structure brought the approach to the platform placement. This is where the huge difference in having a semi open world comes to light. When you need all your maps to go both ways (challenge parts excluded), there is only so much height variation you can impose on the player for instance.

Eventually many of the changes I’m talking about here made their way in the upcoming DLC, to be released on Feb. 26th. This DLC is about as close to going back to the roots of the Sands of Time structure as you could possibly get in this universe. The DLC is a lot tougher, even for us developers, and it proved an absolute blast to make and play.

Q: Elika was obviously integral to the story, but she was also key to the game’s “no death, no reloading” mentality. Did this mechanic arise out of her importance within the story, or was her narrative place cemented by her constant gameplay presence?

A: I really think you can’t separate the two. One impacts the other. In all games with a sidekick, you need to justify their presence one way or the other. Many games have gone the cut-scene way, with various NPCs telling you what to do. Others like Zelda Ocarina of Time gave you Navi to call her at any time you like.

The first solution takes you away from your game, while the second becomes essentially useless after a while, and on top of this imposes some very painful camera shots from time to time.

Elika is a lot more than this. She does provide the same story elements a cut-scene would, but she doesn’t stop you until you reach key moments where we thought we should take the time to introduce more of the story and gameplay elements, like the introductions of certain tower levels. And she also is a Navi of sorts, by having a lot more in depth stories to tell about the world, should the player want them.

I really love Elika’s implementation for all the points above. I think she absolutely never hinders your progress, and there is something to be said there for being one of the very few games ever to accomplish that.

At the same time, Elika proved troublesome on other fronts. From a purely gameplay point of view, the player needs to wait for her to follow in your footsteps, and reaching ingredients like a crack or a grip cuts the game flow, regardless of the beautiful animations. I knew back then when I synched the traps together in my levels that if I felt that, the players would too. And synching traps became difficult when we found ways to time our inputs so we wouldn’t have to wait for her….

Finally, the whole argument about Elika saving you all the time from dying is unwarranted. I don’t exactly know where this originally came from, but it was clear to all of us that Elika’s “save me” sequence was purely a checkpoint in disguise. Let’s face it, we haven’t played a game that actually lets you die in over a decade. Some explicitly stated they still need a “You failed” death screen to give them a sense of reward for finally finishing a sequence, I would rather give the player more fun actually playing the game and getting them right back in the action.

Q: The various colored pads that are scattered around the environment are all point-to-point methods of travel, none of them are used for freeform traveling. Did you ever toy with the idea of making some of them more open-ended (like the blue flying pad), or would that have created too many opportunities for players to escape from the map or the simulation?

A: Prince of Persia is a platforming game first and foremost, and having open ended magical plates like this would only mean breaking up the flow of the player’s inputs. There is only so many different cases us level designers can take into account before a level becomes a maze of intricate ways that frustrate everyone.

I’m not so much concerned with the fact it only gets you from point A to point B like any other platform element would, rather with HOW it does it and what you the player get to do while playing. I like the green plates a lot and would like to toy with other gravity defying moves like this in the future, should I ever work again on a Prince of Persia title.

Q: The upcoming Prince of Perisa DLC contains additional conversations and character development between the Prince and Elika. This was by far my favorite part of PoP. Was the story section of the DLC designed concurrently with PoP, or did you all take a look at PoP and think, “ok, we have more story we want to tell, but not in a sequel?”

A: I think the question of a sequel didn’t really come into play here. None of the DLC was planned, written or produced before shipping the first game. I personally had a hard time leaving our characters and world behind like this, and when I heard a DLC was thought of, I jumped on the occasion to delve more into it and produce additional levels. We really took the early criticisms from the game to heart, and changed as many things as we could given the time constraints.

Q: How was it designing new areas and adventures for the Prince and Elika (in the DLC). What was incorporating the new moves and abilities into a game that had neither of them in its original state?

A: It was a blast. Pure level design fun. Incorporating the new moves required little changes on the structure, as we simply designed these new levels around the new moves. We worked with a smaller team of people who all knew the engine and game structure by heart, so reactivity was the key and I’m amazed we got this much fun done in so little time. I really think this DLC adds a lot to the overall experience.

Q: Finally, what was your favorite part of designing PoP, and what was your favorite part of playing the game in its completed state?

A: I have a hard time pinpointing either one….I really enjoyed designing the Hunter’s Lair through many different stages and sizes, but as much as playing my maps still puts a grin on my face, I had even more fun playing some of my fellow level designers’ work. I think we all purposefully left a few levels aside for our complete walkthrough, so we would still discover new things playing the game. It may not sound much to persons outside the industry, but when you as a developer still can’t wait to play your whole game when it ships, there is a good chance you have something worth all your efforts in your hands.

Q: Were there points at which goals held by other departments fundamentally changed your design plans (or already designed areas)?

A: Developing a game is a creative process and as such you will always have to change your original plans to fit new elements. It’s absolutely essential to even fathom working as a level designer. But in this case, we largely left things unchanged. There were a few cases where the story script would change and we would go back and modify maps, but only a handful were heavily impacted. I know I had to script the Concubine’s Lair 3 times over because of this, but it was all worth it in the end. Like many other games, Prince of Persia’s production was organized so level designers and level artists would work hand in hand from the start, minimizing these risks.

Q: How long did it take you and the other designers to get the feel of the Prince's movement down to where you liked it? Was it a process that spanned the entire development cycle, or did you have it balanced early on in the process?

A: It does last during the entire pre-production development cycle. It may sound strange that something so essential would remain up in the air for as long as it did, but in the end you should never take things for granted and if changes make sense you should really focus on making your gaming experience better. Once proper production begins, the only changes you should do are minor ones (or really you’d still be in pre-prod) as too many things can and will go haywire from these changes.

Q: How did you work with the other departments to create the flow of the maps. Whatever people say, it is obvious that there are several ways into and out of each map. How did you make sure that the different exits and entrances would mesh with the storytelling and cutscenes, and the artistic vision the artists had for the levels.

A: The main focus was on the game flow, as can clearly be observed in the game, and as such level designers were the driving force behind all levels. Gameplay first, everything else second. Once we had our own very rough levels done, we worked hand in hand with the level artists, sometimes up to 3 per level, to bring them up to speed on our intentions, the story, where the cinematics would take place, where the fights would be, and we made sure they would respect our technical constraints. I think they outdid themselves, and we made sure to give them as much freedom as possible to express their creativity in the places the player would never reach. I think it shows. Taking the bridge connecting The Windmills to The Hunter’s Lair again as an example, its nature allowed for such creativity where the player would only go in a very limited set of places.

From then on, having already placed all rough levels in the world, only small modifications were needed to have a flawless experience.

Q: As regards the different levels in the game, they all change after the player liberates them from Ahriman's darkness. For the most part, the level changes cosmetically, but the main gameplay changes come in the unlocking of plates to use, and the opening of new pathways. How did you maintain the flow of levels once the darkness was gone? Was it less important that there be a focal point for each area, now that there was no area boss to defeat?

A: The flow of the levels was harder to strike when corrupted, so healing them proved inconsequential in that regard. But we needed to find reasons and fun ways for the player to go back through these levels. This is a drawback to having an open world, or semi-open world. You need to either open up new missions and things to do, or place the missions that exist throughout the world in no particular order, so no place ever becomes stale. Light seeds provided that solution, in what amounts to a story driven, gameplay intense collection of hidden (or not so hidden) packages. It gives collectors out there better reasons to pick them up than simple hidden packages scattered around the world. And even GTA went the same way and included pigeons to shoot in the 4th installment. You actually get to have fun experimenting how to kill them, and I don’t think developers these days can afford to just randomly place collectibles in their world if they want players to bother.

Q: How did the difference in transportation methods through each map (flying plates as opposed to wall-running plates, say) affect how you designed the map?

A: Thankfully we knew way ahead of time the repartition of these plates in the world, so that became easier. It became clear however as time went by that certain conventions would have to be bent to allow a better experience for the player, so I don’t think any of these sequences were done fast. In retrospect, more time should have been spent on those during pre-production so the design of the levels would take them even more into account from the start.

Q: On a similar note, the light seed collecting mechanic is obviously meant to be a big time sink for the player. How did you end up deciding where they'd be placed?

A: I will go back to the previous answer I mentioned light seeds in. A big time sink for the player is giving them random flags to collect that bring nothing to the gameplay. Light seeds are a lot more than this, they’re also your currency, and wisely enough we decided the player would not have to collect them all to finish the game as he can get enough just walking around on levels he now knows. Now for those that would actually collect all of them, we made sure there would be secret locations, where the added gameplay value would be finding out how to get there. Each level designer was tasked with finding creative locations for some of them, while leaving a mandatory few scattered along the main path.

As for those of you readers who did not find all of them, here is the actual repartition: As you well know, each area has 45 of those. In tower levels that are connected to two intersections, 33 of them are in the main level, 5 of which being only accessible by the extra magical power plate. 6 remain in the connecting sections, on either part of the fight arena.

In tower levels that are connected by three intersections, you will only find 27 in the main level, the missing 6 being of course in the third intersection.