While adding a third axis to a necessarily 2D game is something rather unorthodox, I am not of the mind that like some that believe this just can’t-or shouldn’t-be done. It’s a challenge and a difficulty to surmount, and once all the kinks are worked out, I think it will breathe new life into the game. I am all for it.
With that said, one of the difficulties I have seen to yet be unaddressed with Z-levels (I could certainly miss the odd conversation about it, and perhaps devs are thinking about it themselves), is how unnatural it feels when looking up at a lower level (And yes, I have a key bind to look up. No, I don’t think that’s enough hitherto reasons to be explained). In a let’s say, a 1st person 3D action shooter, your ability to look up and straight feel unconstrained, they happen seamlessly. And even if something is slightly out of your FOV, it’s a tiny mouse stroke to have what you want in view.
But in our favourite 2D space marine game, looking up and straight ahead doesn’t feel seamless, at least not to me. Standing at a lower level, you have to pick. But picking means your ability to look at the other level is significantly hampered, which again, doesn’t feel quite natural. It leaves you exposed to threats that should otherwise not feel that risky. Why can’t I see the xeno standing two tiles away from me just because I’m looking at the floor above? Or the entire marine force standing right above me because my character has the neck of a pig. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t feel right.
I have a few propositions that might rectify this. The first, is creating opacity in the area around you. When looking upwards, if the area underneath what you are looking at is walkable, that area should be made visible at 30% opacity. Not 50%, because it would be hard to distinguish if an enemy you see is from a higher or lower level, but clear enough that you recognize them when they appear. This could be done in an area around the player, say a 3x3 square around you. Being able to see the whole other level while looking up would probably be too visually confusing and cluttered, so it should probably be constrained to just the area around you. For reasons I can’t explain though, I don’t think this would work or feel as good vice versa, that is, being able to see a 3x3 or whatever area above you, when looking straight.
Another idea I had was onomatopoeias. Let’s say, to your East and a Z-level above you (while you look straight ahead), a marine is moving from North to South. As we’ve established, we don’t like looking up! Because that means we can’t look straight. So, what if their movements were marked by an onomatopoeia that shows you where he’s going? When they move into a different square, a green shuffle text bubble pops up in that square for a very short time. And let’s say it’s an enemy ravager this time, and when they move above you, it would instead be a red stomp. The colour and text that pops up can more easily allow you to identify if something is friend or foe, and to a general sense, how big that foe is. I personally like this idea a lot, but I do see some potential difficulties. What if there are like, 15 people above you? Your screen’s going to be filled with these stupid onomatopoeia text pop ups. Perhaps instead you only get the pop up every x amount of movement from a character, or like the previous idea, you only get it the area closest to you. This would still provide you information of what’s happening above you (or straight ahead, if you’re looking up), while not being as visually cluttered.
My third and last idea is just to create some text messages. Something like, “You sense something looming over you” as a Warrior stands at the level above you. Or if there’s a lot of entities above you, “You hear a lot of shuffling happening somewhere above.” I think this idea could also be used for another thing that I find kind of annoying, there are parts of the map that, unless you commit to memory (which you shouldn’t have to, some people only have so much time to play and shouldn’t be punished for that), there are little gaps and areas that have a level above you, that in your right mind you would have no idea or reason to suspect would have an upper area. A possible solution to help with this is that a message could pop up when you stand under one of these small gaps, something like “You feel a draft coming up from above.” This way, the player is given some information, and they get a better sense of their surroundings. This idea suffers in a similar way to the second one, because how often do you allow these text chats to occur? You shouldn’t feel a draft every time you walk over this little gap, nor a drone popping in and out behind a wall repeatedly. So maybe only allow for the message to appear for certain triggers, or with only a certain amount of frequency in x amount of time.
And so, those are my idea(s), guys. To reiterate, the whole idea is to make Z-levels feel more seamless, and because an area isn’t a simple mouse stroke away from being seen, we have to find other means to provide the player with information. These ideas are meant to make for a more pleasant experience, and that the player doesn’t feel like they’re putting themselves at an unnecessary risk having to choose to look up or down, because they really shouldn’t be at risk for something like that.