Now that most of the gameplay systems are designed and implemented in Toki Tori 2, it’s time to finalize the details of the game world.

To visualize it in the real world we borrowed an idea from Hideo Kojima, who famously used Lego to make the layouts of the levels in the original Metal Gear Solid. Right from the start we noticed it’s much easier to talk about the plans and the content of the game if you’ve got a physical object to gather around, so thanks for the idea Mister Kojima, we appreciate it!

Now about that game world! It’s totally different and sort of 3D actually. The levels you’ll play are basically 2D slices of the game world, with gates that connect the different slices together. This means that you can actually plan your route through the game by looking at your surroundings. If you see something interesting far away in the background, you’ll have to travel two or three slices deeper and you’ll reach it!

By modeling the game’s content after our Lego structure, instead of simply stitching levels together, we make sure the entire game world is correctly linked and structured. I expect this to give the player a real sense of place and that it helps to reinforce the idea that you’re dealing with a living and breathing game world.

I’m working on translating the Lego design into rough levels with Hessel now, and I’ll keep you posted on the progress through my Twitter account!