Behind The Masterpiece | Ori and the Blind Forest

ori in the blind forest is one of the most innovative games i've ever played and in today's episode we're going to cover the game design techniques used by moon studios to take constraints in development and in the genre and forge them into positive innovations and why this game is such a masterpiece overall so let's not waste any more time guys there are time stamps on screen now and also in the description so spoiler warning from this point onwards all right let's jump right into it [Music] our story follows ori a sentient leaf blown off of a magical tree during a storm what okay well he was soon found and adopted by a kind creature naaru who cares for and raises him after an unknown catastrophe causes the forest to wither and die naru suddenly passes away leaving auri alone and afraid we then follow ori's journey to heal the forest and unearth the cause of its destruction so when looking at ori the first thing most people will notice is the art direction it's stunning 2.5 d art style is just simply gorgeous inspired by the works of hayao miyazaki such as narcissa of the valley of the wind it just has this constant sense of fluidity and motion to it this is a beautiful technical achievement for the time especially on the unity engine but it is also specifically designed to maximize how it teaches the player non-intrusively one of the constraints of creating a game in two dimensions is that there are a limited amount of options you have to signify information or teach the player due to the play space being on one plane rather than in three dimensions but the developers at moon studios circumvented this constraint of the art style with their creative use of colour and the foreground so while playing in a 2d space the environment is visually conveyed to the player on three separate planes we have the background play space and foreground and moving these separate planes horizontally at different speeds can create the illusion of depth matching this is called parallaxing and this isn't anything new it's been used in the industry for years in 2d games but the genius of ori is how it uses the foreground plane to non-intrusively guide the player throughout the game while playing creatures and characters will appear in the background and the foreground and many of these are really hard to spot and don't appear to affect gameplay but some are actually used to help guide the player i won't bite for example gumo stalks ori for the first half of the game they appear sporadically in the foreground and it's important that they do appear in the foreground rather than the background as it being so close to the player's camera it makes it a lot harder for them to miss gumo will then move in certain directions in the world this then subtly signifies where to go and what to do but it also works as a non-verbal narrative hook this just conveys so much information visually by a character simply moving through the world without the player needing to stop and read a giant wall of text which is basically impossible when the game moves this quickly and the speed of the game is another constraint the developers hurdle for the game's consistent use of color and shaders to convey faction and function faction in its most basic form is how you determine if something is friend or foe visually and ori achieves this for its use of colour gloves making enemies always either fluorescent purple or orange these are distinct consistent colours that can be separated from the background quickly so you can always know what is a fret at a glance and this isn't so good for guys like me who are colorblind but hey that's why function signifiers exist function is being able to quickly look at an object and assess what it does and ori does this with its use of a shader that gives interactable objects this kind of sheen and glow so the player can always immediately tell what is an interactable in the world but it also draws the player's eyes to these objects and once the developers actually have your attention on these objects they can use it in interesting ways teaching through trolling is a technique used by developers to help you remember something by pissing you off for example just before you acquire the double jump ability you'll show this shiny collectible that is just out of reach and it looks like you might just be able to get it but no matter how hard you try it's not possible this then locks this memory of these inaccessible items into your brain by frustrating you by making you want to keep trying so that when you do get the ability to access these items you remember that annoying troll incentivizing you to backtrack and explore but this troll teaching only really works because each and every item in ori has a purpose hidden collectibles are a huge part of any metroidvania game they have hazards or ability checks blocking your path and you need to acquire new power-ups to bypass them that you can only find by exploring and the beauty of ori is how every single collectible in its world has a purpose meaning that every hidden platforming challenge you find no matter how difficult it is will always have a meaningful reward at the end they either give ori ability points to level up extra health or energy and this energy is one of the most important resources to seek out in the game and the main driving force for players to actually explore this energy is both used for certain combat abilities opening doors and saving the game and when and where to save the game is completely up to the player it can be done at any point as long as you're not in combat but since you start with only one energy tank and tanks are quite rare to find managing this resource is incredibly important but for a completely unrelated example if you for instance forget to save the game because you're so immersed in it and you've just progressed through an entire area defeating a boss and then suddenly you just die to a spiky boy and you get sent back to your previous save which was half an hour ago you can't really get mad it's your fault but the game is constantly requiring you to use this energy resource to open doors or destroy hazards giving you less chances to actually save the game overall and this fear and frustration caused by this low amount of energy is completely deliberate and further increases the players drive to explore to find more energy tanks creating more opportunities to save and making the game easier overall but that doesn't make this an easy game well the combat is easy and simple but the platforming is stupidly hard and we can see this clearly in its paradoxically innovative and lazy boss design [Music] platforming has always been a byproduct of the metroidvania genre rather than a focus most games tend to focus on the combat aspects but ori completely flips this platforming is now the focus and this raises an interesting question how do you design bosses for a game focused around platform but before we answer that what is a boss well a boss in its simplest form is a narrative or mechanical climax it either tests a player or mechanics they've learned throughout the game or it's a dramatic conclusion to a conflict in its narrative and this doesn't just have to mean being locked in a room with a big man and just hitting him with a stick until he's dead which i think we can agree that most bosses boil down to in a lot of modern games which is such a shame so if a boss is a mechanical climax and the majority of ori's mechanics are centered around platforming instead of having combat bosses or he has platforming bosses and the best example of this for me is the jinzo tree the jinzo tree is effectively a platforming dungeon you're introduced to two new mechanics inside portals and bash these mechanics are then slowly expanded on to teach you their full capabilities as you make your way to the top of the tree and as you arrive you are relentlessly tested in a form of a platforming chase sequence boss this is stupidly fast paced and you'll be swallowed if you stumble for even a second this serves as a test of your mastery over these new mechanics as you progress further and further up the tree as the music swells to its crescendo as the waters bite at your heels and the elation you feel when you finally overcome it coupled with the massive change you've just caused narratively to the world and how it opens up its level design by cleaning the waters of the forest is just beautiful design now compare that to this so on one hand the developers at moon studios created these incredibly innovative platforming bosses that take you through the environment naturally and progress the narrative in meaningful ways but also included generic combat bosses that repeat three times throughout this five hour game oh wait no sorry with this one you fight two of them at the same time which is completely different wow combat in this game is just mind numbing all you need to do is just move out the way of an enemy's attack and then mindlessly spam the same button in the proximity of an enemy and your attacks will automatically track to them to be completely honest i think this game would have been improved if they just completely scrapped combat entirely wait keep the enemies but take away ori's ability to directly attack them i think this would be a lot more powerful narratively and in gameplay if ori was completely defenseless and had to avoid enemies until he finally unlocked the ability to redirect their own attacks back at them with the bash mechanic wait bash wait i haven't spoken about bashar oh my god so the bash mechanic is the single most innovative design i have ever seen in any game it's incredibly simple on face value but it completely changes everything once acquired in the jinzo tree bash allows for you to momentarily slow time and then bash off of an enemy and their projectiles effectively giving you a third jump this also allows for you to propel whatever you bash off of in the opposite direction that you were traveling in this can then be used to redirect projectiles to solve puzzles or even redirect attacks back at enemies and this changes everything it takes every enemy projectile and level has it and turns them into a brand new platforming opportunity and not only does the game really open up once you get this but it's also empowering you've just spent half the game slowly spamming x to kill enemies but now you can just blast past them at lightning speeds or even redirect their attacks back at them bash overall might be the single greatest addition to this game and the most elegant innovation to a combat and platforming system by just changing one tiny detail is just simply genius [Music] ori overall is a beautiful technical achievement with countless innovative designs with many genius techniques used to guide the player throughout its world naturally without interrupting the flow or immersive qualities of the game but the overall combat experience left me wanting more and i can't wait to see what they've done with this sequel ori and the will of the wisps to see where they've taken the series do they focus on combat or platforming well i guess we'll find out in another episode subscribe if you don't want to miss that one mate [Music] thank you so much for watching guys it really means the world to me subscribe if you're new and tell me what you would like to see me cover on the channel i'd really love to hear your thoughts next we're going to be taking a look at something a little bit different um i'll leave that as a surprise but afterwards we're going to be taking a look at ori in the world of the wisps and i want to give a special shout out to my lovely patrons for supporting these videos to actually be made we have jonathan gray daddy dank foster sam elliott carl church the guy who pays my rent very true man perv james and the fifa zorus i really hope i pronounced that right without these wonderful people these videos would not be possible they wouldn't exist so thank you guys so much for the support if you want to help support the production of this series you can do so by checking out my patreon where you get to vote on the next great or hate episode or even see episodes early before they release even liking and sharing these videos helps the channel grow immensely so thank you to everyone who's even helping in that way if you want more of my combination of stupid humor and game development analysis a new episode of great hate releases every other sunday and i stream every friday at 7 pm gmt at twitch.tv instrument i hope to see you there thank you so much for the support mate i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Design Delve

Views: 13,220

Keywords: Ori And The Blind Forest, Ori & The Blind Forest, Ori, Ori And The Will Of The Wisps, Ori 1, Ori 2, Game Design, Game Development, Development, Devs, Retrospective, Review, Gr8 or H8, Great or Hate, JM8, Funny, Memes

Id: Y8UwWtxdy6s

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 29 2020