Moon Studios

Design a level around one mechanic, not around its setting. In Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the Windswept Wastes grew out of the burrow ability, not the desert theme. Level designer Chris McEntee sketched moments that were impossible without it, such as diving into sand and dashing out over spikes, since the dash jump is higher than a normal jump.

The idea came from a Sonic Colors video of a creature that digs through big volumes. Even earlier, one of his first tasks was to find many uses for a basic collapsing-platform prototype through paper sketches and blockouts, which were then handed to programmers and animators to reach a first playable.

Tune a new move in prototype until it matches the game's feel. The first burrow was deliberately slower and turned loosely to feel like friction in sand. Team playtests tightened it because Ori's controls are tight, and the fine-tuning took months and years.

Genre rules can push a design toward its best idea. A laser room with collapsing platforms was a one-way trip, which a Metroidvania cannot allow because players must backtrack. A programmer made the platforms out of sand that collapses, reappears and stays diggable, so players could dig their way back.

It was unplanned, since the burrow did not exist when the platforms were made; Chris calls it a light bulb moment. In Rayman, by contrast, a collapsing section is fine because you simply keep going.

Layer difficulty with care and spread each element's lessons out. Aiming and burrowing through a hanging sand ball is far harder than holding down on a sand floor, so each added layer is placed deliberately. Chris warns against putting all three or four escalations of one element in a single row.

Lessons for one element are interspersed with other elements to keep the area varied.

Cut abilities that only act as keys for doors. A planned dungeon with a drill ability for thick rock blockers was cut because the drill was not versatile enough; the Windtorn Ruins became a linear story moment instead. The rule: every ability should change how you play.

Many burrow ideas were also dropped, such as a block you tunnel under to drop and a worm leaving an acid trail, judged on what players grasp easily versus novelty that adds little. A sand platform too thin to dig became the trampoline platform.

Keep a strong early prototype and use it as a ramp. The laser room, one of the oldest ideas, was in the very first demo sent to Microsoft. It was hard to get right and went back and forth, and Chris pushed to keep it as a ramp up to one of the final burrow challenges.

Hint secrets with subtle visuals so most players feel smart finding them. A small lip on a wall guides the eye to a hidden spot, and breakable walls look different without a giant crack. The aim is that everybody should be able to find many of them.

Chris contrasts this with the off-screen hidden barrels in old Donkey Kong games, where players jump off the screen and hope.

Accept sequence breaks as the price of player freedom. A player with the light burst can throw it and skip the sand worms; Chris calls that "the price you pay for a little bit of freedom and options." Areas are not tuned to a fixed order, and the team avoided even soft pushes like strong enemies saying come back later.

The skip still takes a thrown light burst, a bash catch in the air and a dash through a sandball. The sequel was meant to be more open than the first game from the start.

Let every route lead back to the main path. Chris's rule is that "all roads kind of lead to the same destination": in the Wastes, two routes return to the golden path so players can wander without getting lost.

The desert, the last area needed for the story, is not locked, so players can arrive early and hit a dead end at the temple. Playtests flagged it as anticlimactic; the team accepted the trade-off, placed fast travel wells near the entrance, and players still leave with experience, shards and buffs.

Show a level without the new ability, then replay it with it. The Ginso Tree in Ori and the Blind Forest first tests existing moves across platforming with portals, a projectile puzzle, a combat arena and a four-key run. The second half repeats the same sections with Bash, each now with a new solution.

Projectiles are bashed toward the tree, and the slugs' barf bombs now work in your favour. The final arena can only be won by firing projectiles back, and two closing rooms combine every use of Bash.

Bash works because it is expressive and joins platforming with combat. Time slows so players pick any of 360 degrees, and the pause makes the following rush of speed feel like a catapult. It keeps Ori airborne and turns enemies and projectiles into tools instead of threats.

Players must consider both the projectile's direction and Ori's opposite one, or they may launch into spikes. Mark Brown ranks it beside Tony Hawk's reverts and Devil May Cry's High Time.

Piling on mechanics erodes a clean moveset. By the end Ori has charge jump, triple jump, stomp, charge burst, feather float and more, so remembering which button does what becomes half the challenge.

Mark Brown also cites backtracking confusion and frustrating difficulty spikes elsewhere, though Forlorn Ruins and Mount Horu use Bash well.

Make escapes hard but keep failure from breaking the illusion. The Ginso Tree escape is about a minute of unbroken platforming under threat of death, with instant restarts, music that never resets and no checkpoints. It is tough enough that most players fail more than once, avoiding the "all spectacle, no substance" of easy set pieces.

An escape should cost a couple of deaths, never ten. Chris's rule for Will of the Wisps: about 60 to 80 percent should flow naturally with roughly 20 percent curveballs, and every threat must be react-able. On the team, an escape beaten first try is always called too easy.

Five or ten deaths feels like trial and error. In Chris's words, it should feel like "I had the time to read the situation, I just sort of failed to do so and I can do better next time."