Tomb Diver

Analyzing the Challenge Tombs

Obviously, I chose to make a “Challenge Tomb” of my own because I loved to play the Challenge Tombs in the Survivor Trilogy. But to to reproduce the experience of the Tombs I first had to answer several questions:

• What makes these levels interesting and fun to play?
• What makes a “Challenge Tomb” a Challenge Tomb in terms of level design?
• Which incentives are given and which motivations are offered to players to play these side quests?
• Why are the Challenge Tombs rewarding to play? - Which rewards await players for completing the Tomb?
• Which kinds of challenges players have to overcome to complete these levels?
• How are the Challenge Tombs structured in terms of Pacing and Flow?
• What effect do side-quest-levels have on the general/ overall Pacing and Flow of the games?

And finally the final and central question:

• How are Challenge Tombs as side-quest-levels integrated into the semi-open-world areas of the series and what is their function and purpose in otherwise linear Action-Adventures?

The results of my study and detailed answers to these questions you can find here:

Unreal Visual Scripting & Character Controller

Unreal comes with amazing free templates but none of them had the specific moveset of Lara in the Tomb Raider Trilogy so I started to expand the 3rd-Person Unreal character blueprint and in a way that it would serve my purpose.

Therefore I coded wall and ledge climbing functions with Visual Scripting, implemented mantling, crouching and sliding moves.

I made my own functional checkpoint, level trigger and interactable object scripts (levers, switches, sliding doors, movable objects, trap doors and spear traps etc.).

Proud as I was how fast I had accomplished to produce e. g. a working ledge climbing system I realized during the first weeks of the project that balancing and fine tuning my own Adventure Game System would either take its toll on the quality of the level design or remain in an unpolished state. Therefore I made the hard decision to abandon the character controller I had put a lot of effort in and use a readymade Adventure Game System created by a professional programmer (Jakub W) to have more time to invest in improving and iterating upon the level design.

Nonetheless, the process of making my own Adventure Game System was not in vain. I learned a lot about Visual Scripting and Unreal Blueprints, the Animation System, Collision Layers and much more. I now have a much better and deeper understanding of many components of the Unreal Engine and how they work together.

Level Layout and Iterations

My analysis of the Challenge Tombs showed that these levels usually consisted of four level sections I also wanted to have in my “Tomb”:

• The hidden entrance area located in the semi-open world regions of the Survivor Trilogy. Though “hidden”, these areas were marked with clear denominators like color coded decals and props such as golden masks on poles.
• Behind the entrance followed an alley-type-like level section, a narrow path either enclosed by walls/ rocks or deadly chasms to the left and right of the path.
• The actual Challenge Tomb, which I dubbed “Challenge Tomb Proper”, a rectangular or circular “playground” area in which the elements of the central puzzle and the reward/ level goal are located.
• Finally, the way back, also an alley-/path-like section leading back towards the entrance - usually a short cut running parallel or above the way in which often is only accessible from the end of the level.

Quite early on I had a vision of how the entrance area and the path to Challenge Tomb could look like: Coming from a narrow valley basin the player would enter a canyon through a rock crevice. Players would have to find their way along narrow ridges high above chasms created by a wide river eroding the rock of the canyon.

From the canyon players would enter a closed off temple complex containing the Challenge Tomb proper: the central puzzle with the level goal/ reward at the end.

Yet, there was a certain tension between the very vertical and winding rough natural surroundings and gameplay within/ around human architecture - which in the real world is usually built on flat planes.

The question of how I could reconcile these two elements was a challenge I had to tackle.

Depending on what type of game or level you’re making, realism is of course not premise number 1 in a video game but for an Action Adventure inspired by Tomb Raider the interplay between natural environment and architecture had at least to be convincing.

Since not all questions can be answered only in theory I began to block out (gray box) and started a dialogue between the conceptual layouts on paper and the playable level in Engine.