Surrounding Forest

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### **Overview**

The Surrounding Forest is a really beautiful scenery but is also very dangerous and full of creatures trying to protect their territory. Actually, there's a unique path to reach Hephalden Village and the foot of the Great Mountain, when players come from the city. It's the home of Hephaldeners and its lake also supplies Plutonians who live in Newland. Citizens don't enter the forest purposelessly, they're aware of the risks, so they usually ask for the forest people to complete some tasks in exchange of some resources. But some of them are attracted by stories of treasures, artifacts, and hidden caves, but none of these have ever returned.

### **Player Experience**

The few number of friendly NPCs in this area communicate to players of the wildness of the forest. At first, they will see nothing but trees, and when they get distracted some foes will jump against them, assuming that they're invaders. After that, players will be always aware of encounters, although they're almost unavoidable. Once next to the river, foes will be visible but they'll attack if players get too close. The forest may provide them with some stage advantages, so they can create strategies to better accomplish their tasks.There's a viewpoint next to the Lake, so players will be able to do admire those little waterfalls and the Lake itself.

#### **Level Objectives**

**Main Objectives:**

* Reach the Aerial of Communication.

**Secondary Objectives:**

* Collect Food;
* Collect Loot;
* Gain EXP;
* Help Hephalden Villagers

#### **Enemies**

**Forest Creature 1**

People say they’re shy, but that isn’t true. They stay into the woods, guarding the forest against invaders, or actually anything that looks different from them. Those creatures can easily camouflage themselves because they are living plants. "Forest Creature 1" usually use earth and stones to protect their body, like real warriors. They're not really strong foes, but an encounter can be dangerous if there are a lot of them.

**Lake Creature 1**

These ones look like a mix of amphibious creatures and fishes with their slimy skins, webbed fingers, and fins. "Lake Creatures 1" are aquatic creatures, but they can easily walk on almost any surface. Like "Forest Creatures 1", they're territorialists and will attack strangers who come closer to "their" lake, but they're more offensive foes and cause more damage.

**Lake Miniboss**

Rumors say about a mythical creature big enough to swallow a person in a single movement of its tongue. Its description reminds of a giant frog, but actually, those who tell the stories assume that they never saw the creature either. According to the tales, it lives in a cave next to the lake and commands all the "Lake Creatures".

This is the first real mini boss of the game. It attacks with its tongue and spitting water. Water attacks can be single or multi-targeted."Lake Miniboss" haven't great attack power, but its strong constitution makes him hard to defeat.

### **Look and Feel**

The level has three different areas, which 2 of them blend themselves as the player advances.

#### **Environment**

In the beginning of the pathway of the forest, vegetation is colorful, besides of the bluish fog. Because of the high trees, the projected shadows turn the ambient a bit darker, with a few rays of sunlights transpassing it. Deeper into the woods there is a lake and some waterfalls. In that stage, there's a clearing with sunlight being reflected, no trees to interrupt the sunlight. So, in this area, the ambient is brighter and more open, with stones scattered in and out of the lake and two bridges compounding the scenery. After the first bridge, it's notable that the environment and vegetation, that was really saturated and colorful, start to blend into some desaturated and gray-scaled one. There's a lot of snow in the most advantage paths, announcing the end of this level and the beginning of the next one: the Great Mountain.

#### **Pacing**

This level structure is a bit longer than the one before, but it’s pacing is something that changes from player to player. Actually, there are the main quests that every player need to complete before advancing to other levels, but side quests are additional content and may request more time from players that want to complete all of them. For completing the main quests, players will have different types of quests, most of them require from player to walk all over the level.

### **Gameplay**

#### **Weapons & Items**

At this level, players may have one or two better GEARs than the initial ones. They’ll also have some more levels to help them to defeat these foes, and with level: new skills. By defeating the miniboss of the lake and completing the related quest, some new GEAR may be given to the player. There'll be many different items and ingredients to be looted too, as the types of foes increased.

#### **Quests**

For some reason, the creatures of the forest ruined the first bridge, the main access to the mountain. Find a way to rebuild it.

* Find someone to help you rebuilding the bridge;
* Find building resources for the bridge;
* Defend the bridge while it’s being repaired.

**Help “NPC X” to cure his daughter’s disease:**

The shaman of Hephalden Village said there near the waterfalls grows a very specific herb that is used for the preparation of the medicine that will save her. Find it and deliver to the Shaman.

* Talk to the Shaman of Hephalden Village;
* Locate the Herb near of the waterfall;
* Collect and Deliver the Herb to the Shaman.

**Secondary Quests:**

**The Hungry Watchman**

Next to the viewpoint, near the entrance to the Hephalden Village, there’s a Watchman that was forgotten and is very hungry. Make him some food, so he doesn’t need to leave his post and abbadon his duties.

* Collect Ingredients for food “X”;
* Prepare him “Y number” food “X”.

**The rage of the Forest:**

Hephaldeners lives with what is provided by the nature. gathering is a common way of providing food and other resources, but something have changed and the creatures are more dangerous than before. Help the gatherers to complete their task.

* Defeat 10 “Forest Creatures”;
* Defeat 10 “Lake Creatures”;

**Where’s my “X”:**

This may be an investigative quest. Some item has vanished and people are looking for it. What might have happened?

* Find out what happened;
* Find the Item and deliver it back to the villagers.