Infinity 27: XDev
- Will Watson
- May 3
- 5 min read
Previously, I created a post about my journey as a design bootcamper at Infinity27. Three months have passed and during this time, I have continued to work with them up until recently. With the end of the bootcamp, I was given the opportunity to become an External Developer (or 'XDev' for short). This meant I could continue working on The Poison Arrow for a contracted 3 months. Though three months was a deceptively long time, the intent for an XDev is to wrap up any unfinished work, ensure playability, and to have a final chance at refinement. The three months was more to ensure you could work on your own schedule.
I absolutely took this as an opportunity to take my time and really consider the goals of my quest. Changes were made, values reconsidered, and overall I believe The Poison Arrow is 100% better for this. I wish I could tour you round the level of The Poison Arrow, unfortunately this blog post will have to do!
To remind previous followers, or to share to those who have not seen my work before, during my time at Infinity27, I created a quest, NPC dialogue, and a level for their early access game 'Escape from Samsara'. My quest, 'The Poison Arrow' follows a narrative that is a direct reference of the Buddhist parable 'Parable of the Poisoned Arrow' (not the song 'Poison Arrow' by ABC as Dave, the producer, likes to point out). Within the parable of The Poisoned Arrow, 'Gautama Buddha' being the one to tell it, the story tells of a man who refuses assistance after being shot by a poisoned arrow unless someone can report unnecessary information to him. The teachings of the parable, from my understanding, is to not hang onto details that do not provide solutions to the problem and to not hang onto the little things in life.
It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.'Back to my project; let's start big with the most notable changes.
The very first, most obvious change, lies right in the middle of the level. Throughout the map, I have added three puzzles the player must complete to finish the quest. The 2nd of these puzzles was the 'Invisible Bridge' puzzle. I must admit, I hated this puzzle. Unfortunately, I found myself stuck at the end of the bootcamp. Not liking my work and not having enough time to change anything was not a great feeling. Fortunately, with the extension of 'XDev', I could amend this. I deleted every part of that puzzle till it was just a void and started from scratch. The new puzzle, simply named 'Gate Puzzle', introduces a new way of thinking for existing mechanics, and ultimately a new puzzle loop rather than just 'it's another bridge variety'.
The concept of Gate Puzzle is pretty simple. Stand on a coloured pressure plate, any gate with the matching colour will either open or close depending on it's current state. Standing on each pressure plate in a certain order while following a specific route around the puzzle enables the player to go through the exit. As for inspiration, I looked mostly to Pokemon. It so happened that I was playing Pokemon Sword for the first time while designing this puzzle and they had the exact same concept, this enabled me to have a reference on both map layout and how to handle walking routes that it made creating my own super easy.
One small change came off the back of introducing this puzzle. I made a point of balancing chests, both hidden and difficult to reach, and utilising these doors I created a space in the boss room where going back to interact with one of the pressure plates from the puzzle would open up a door in the boss room, leading to a chest. The player is only able to obtain this chest after activating the short cut into the boss room.
The next big change is something I unfortunately don't have a screenshot for so I'll pair this with a smaller change. The smaller change is that I managed to get the arrow that the NPC was shot by to track to the leg. I remember kicking myself while addressing this as an XDev as I couldn't figure out how to do it during bootcamp, even though it is something I've done many times before. I also changed up his outfit and sorted some issues with his hair. Samsara's NPC customisation has a daunting amount of variables and assets for those unfamiliar with Unreal Engine's MetaHumans!
The big change for Rdo Rje is that he actually 'dies'. It was my original intent for Rdo to die upon completing the quest. He did not do this previously. After a lot of testing and blueprinting, I managed to get him to trigger an animation, get stuck in said animation, then disappear in the same fashion as any other NPC would upon death. There are two ways to trigger this. Either kill the boss during the quest, or do all the steps without completing the quest and report all the information he requires. Below is the entire dialogue tree, it's near impossible to read but there may be those who'd like to see it!
As for other changes, they are not really too notable. These included slight map alterations, rethinking shortcuts, sightlines, spelling errors, just a whole bunch of tiny things. I had my final 'Level of Fidelity' ('LoF') check around the middle of April and have since kept tabs on content they share in their discord channel. I also had an interview with them, one of the options given after finishing bootcamp, of which I am told I should hear back about this month. Wish me luck!
I have a few extra images with not much to narrate about so please enjoy!
This wraps up my time at Infinity27, it was honestly one of the best experiences I've ever had, and I am incredibly grateful to the entire team for their support. I absolutely recommend this to anyone, whether you are a beginner or indie, there is nothing else like this.
