Zack and Wiki - King of the jungle

Quick Synopsis
Zack and Wiki - Quest for Barbaros treasure - is a point-and-click puzzle adventure game made by Capcom. The story starts as Zack (a young pirate) and Wiki (his best friend and magical golden monkey/bell) find the cursed skull of the mythical pirate king Barbaros. Barbaros explained that he has been cursed for many centuries now (and sort of skims over the reason why) and promises Zack and Wiki the world if they help to save him. Zack, being a ten-year-old raised by talking rabbits, sees no problems whatsoever with this plan and agrees to search for the other body parts of Barbaros scattered throughout the lands. And so they embark on an epic quests to help this pirate king with questionable intentions regain his lost body - and ultimately have him help them find a way to the legendary treasure island.

What could possibly go wrong.

Gameplay footage: King of the jungle - "normal playthrough"
Yeah you should probably throw rocks at him, that sounds like a great idea

The game plays as a typical puzzle game; you enter an area, the area has/is one big puzzle consisting of several smaller steps and a clear end goal (in this case the treasure chest, normally holding one of the missing body parts of the pirate king, but in end levels they usually contain a map to the next area). The thing that makes this game truly unique is the "Bell system" - Wiki is not only a magical flying monkey, but he can also turn into a giant bell, the sound of which turns living creatures into objects and vice versa.

For this level design exercise, I've chosen to examine the level "King of the jungle", which is the first real endboss in the game.

To get to this level, you have just finished all the (disguised) tutorial levels and one level that truly tested you're new-found skills (and you're probably feeling pretty good about yourself right now), but then the intro starts and Zack pisses of a giant ape - which will from there on out always be keeping an eye on your every move, waiting for a chance to throw you off the cliff. This introduces two problems:

• a) you can't just walk up to the treasure chest anymore, as the ape already sees you as the enemy,
and
• b) you can't freely ring the bell anymore, as the ape is absolutely terrified of the sound. Scared apes throw giant rocks, so you'd better think twice about your next action.

These two factors completely throw the game on it's head; ringing the bell is essential for the level, you absolutely have to do that, or you can't even open the treasure chest (chests are guarded by angry spirits, which can only be expelled by ringing the bell). So now, instead of only finding a way to get to the chest (which is actually readily available from the start), you have to find a way to stay out of sight and hearing distance of the ape and either find another point of acces to the treasure chest without disturbing the ape as much as once (remember, ringing the bell means that you're instantly spotted), or lure him away as far as possible without him throwing things (being it giant rocks at your face or you of a cliff).

And this is actually one of the reasons why I like this level so much; there are two completely different solutions to solving this level;

• finding a way to get the treasure away from the ape and then another point of acces to said treasure, without him spotting you,
or
• getting behind the ape and itemizing him before he has the chance to get away

This last solution is actually a lot harder; you have to lure him all the way to the other end of the level without him spotting you, therefore you have to ring he bell within hearing distance of the ape but run away before he gets to you, which is a tricky balance to find. This scenario does have the added bonus of not falling of a cliff at the end though, which saves you some terribly stressing quicktime events while you're falling to your dead. (See first movie - 5:58 and onward) (also if you forgot that umbrella you're screwed)
There are also numerous small ways which you can swap around to fix the level, such as whether or not you drop the bowl on the wind-statue by getting it yourself or by using the apes fear of the bell against him by letting him drop the bowl for you, which I find nice little touches to an already great level.

Gameplay footage: King of the jungle - "alternate playthrough"
If you ever play this game; try bringing a lit torch up to the ape while he's not looking. Trust me, it's worth the extra time and effort

After completing the game, the amount of branching paths gets even bigger, as he game then introduces the so-called "secret chests"; little purposefully vague riddles that tell you to do explicit things in unspecified levels to get extra treasures, usually containing nice background information and/or concept art (which I of course thoroughly enjoy as an aspiring Game Designer/developer).

As a final addition, I'd like to talk about something that slipped by me as a child (because as much as I love the game, it is targeted at children, probably aged between 10-15) but really became apparent as I replayed it later; there is a lot of untold narrative in the level design itself. I mean sure, there's not a single child out there who truly believed the story of Barbaros and how he was just going to give us his treasures if we helped him, him eventually betraying us (SPOILER!... just kidding) did not really come as a surpirse. What is never truly mentioned though is why he was cursed in the first place; the people of his time just did. If you dive dep into the hidden lore (which can be found by aforementioned secret treasure chests) you do find stories of Barbaros being a truly evil man, killing and pilgering and more things not appropriate for kids games, but the nature of his crimes and how hard it was to stop him only becomes truly apparent by looking at the levels. All levels are designed in a somewhat similar fashion: the chest is protected by either an elaborate technical syste or an undying guardian, and every chest has it's own vengeful spirit, making it impossible for anyone to open the chests if they are not accompanied by Wiki. Since Zack is still a ten year old and Wiki has lost his memory, the main characters think nothing of this, but as the player, it leaves you with a sense of guilt. Are you really doing the right thing? If all these civilizations scattered around this whole wide world decided that Barbaros could never come back, and used all theree advanced technology to ensure he truly never would, should we really be trying to save him? And why couldn't those people, now long gone, with all that same advanced technology, not kill the guy? Why did they have to go to such lengths to ensure he would never return? Since these are all unanswered or glossed over by the story of the game itself, hiding the answers in the levels like this without explicitly stating it has always been one of the main reasons why I still like to play the game up to this game, even though I solved all the puzzles years ago.

The nature of this man you're happily helping to get back to his full strength becomes even more apparent if you get to the later levels in the game, taking place in his own castle (now little more than ruins), which are filled with vengeful ghosts, skeletons, dungeons and terrifying torture machines... should we really go against the will of those who put him away?

But that's going ahead of myself, I think I've said all there is to say about this level, even though I could go on for hours about the game as a whole.

As a final final addition, here is a tiny summary of the entry I've just written, using Gamasutra's Ten principles of good game design as a template:

1. King of the jungle does not rely on words to tell the story; sure it uses a lot of dialogue (mostly from Wiki), but the true story is told through smart level design.
2. Allows the player to control the difficulty, as there are two real solutions to the problem and players are free to choose. Will I take the difficult route and save myself the quicktime events, or will I take the easy route and focus really, really hard on not forgetting that stupid umbrella?
3. Tells the player what to do, but not how to do it; I mean the chest is RIGHT THERE, from the start, and the ape is clearly in the way.
4. Is fun to navigate; no level is big enough to get lost, but even though the levels seem rather straightforward at first glance, there is almost never only one way about it and there are always secrets to be found.
5. Creates emotion (at least by me it did); since I started feeling genuinely guilty for saving the guy for my own selfish reasons (and since the ape is pretty innocent and still dies in both scenarios)

And that's it. Zack and Wiki is to this day still one of my favourite video games ever (and the first game in which I truly saw how great a level design could be from a developers perspective, and not just becausse I was having so much fun playing it). I hope I got at least some of that feeling across to you, the reader, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Have a nice day!
Merle

Let's go on a quest to help this scary floating glowy skull YEAH!