Dev. Diary #2: “Shadow of the Leviathan”
The primary influence for Leviathan Wilds isn’t any great secret, but even though there’s certainly shared DNA between it and Shadow of the Colossus, Leviathan Wilds isn’t trying to replicate precise aspects of that experience. Rather, it’s a look at the design prompt “Climb a giant creature that’s trying to kill you” through the lens of tabletop gaming.
The game being cooperative immediately makes a lot of sense. It’s quite strong for tone and the play experience when players can unite a single threat. Additionally, co-op games work really well with themes of hope, triumph, perseverance, and even altruism to a certain extent. If we run with that, we can move out of the melancholy tones of Shadow of the Colossus to establish ourselves firmly as “our own thing” (which is valuable for our long term goals).
Going back to the prompt, “climb” is the critical verb. It establishes the game as being movement-oriented instead of fighting and combat. Additionally, it has the dual purpose of both progressing towards victory but also avoidance when the giant creature is trying to kill you.
And regarding that, it becomes ideal if leviathan attacks carry a sense of “weightiness” to match the thematic size. This is where AoEs and telegraphing come in, letting the dread shadow of a gigantic fist (claw, tentacle, psychic-turtle-mind-blast) fall upon the climber while they scramble out of the way. Having dodgeable attacks naturally leads to the ring-shaped attack markers; a component that marks the target area but does not move after being placed.
Looking again at the player side of gameplay: climbing a gigantic monster is a dangerous, reckless endeavor. How do our stalwart protagonists do so without being smooshed?
A lot of this is answered mechanically through the tools available to the climbers and how they manage/master their environment. Fortunately, telegraphing attacks has a second purpose; the leviathan revealing its intent ahead of time allows players to avoid, mitigate, or simply face tank the effects.
The next layer is the player deck, filled with a host of “anytime” effects to amplify the flexibility, comboing, and overall environmental mastery. This can’t be infinite, however, otherwise the experience would become too easy or just generally lack tension. Thus, limit the number of cards in hand (which has the side benefit of not overwhelming a player with information) and also make the deck itself represent grip. This adds a layer of risk management that fits well with the theme: burn too many effects, and your climber gets tired, loses grip, and falls.
Putting it all together, each turn becomes a micro-puzzle. Choose your card for action points carefully, and see if you can squeeze in some more efficiency if you throw in a skill or two. Balance that against what the leviathan is going to do, and build a framework to push yourself toward the objective. All of this while managing your hand/deck, keeping an eye on other players to see if you/they can help, and avoiding situations where a bad threat draw will ruin your day.
That’s the basic framework of the core game loop, but obviously it didn’t all come together overnight. There were a lot of lousy versions and just plain broken bits that were tested and discarded over the weeks and months of the design process.
That’s it for this week; feel free to comment if you have questions about the design or specific mechanisms!
