level design study: rpg - sorrowed king castle
14 March 2021
Learning Objective: I wanted to challenge myself to do what would be a complete level in a RPG-styled game. Even though not all the gameplay features are implemented, I wanted to achieve an overall look about how the game would feel and guide the player as planning the gameplay beats.
Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4.26
Art Plug-ins: Stylized PBR Nature, FX Variety Pack and Weapon Pack
step 1: deciding the setting
The first logical step was to decide what to do. I have always wanted to experiment with medieval-RPG games, and this seemed as the perfect occasion. Now that it was decided that it would be in a fantasy-themed world, I had to narrow the options to where it would be.
Eventhough I began thinking about a natural ambience with caves, trees and a forest, I quickly changed to a castle because I thought I would be able to explore more options that way.
step 2: it's time to gather information
Now that I knew that the setting was going to be mainly a castle with a huge bridge to a tower, I started gathering references from my favourite games and real styles to create an accurate-ish version of the place. Here you can see some examples of photos I used as references.
step 3: designing the level layout
The level was going to begin with the character climbing up a hill and then discovering a whole panoramic of the castle and the point of interest: the tower. Here you can see side to side how the first castle sketch was VS the final castle layout. I decided to use colour code to highlight elements in the environment, as it can be seen in the image on the right. Some of these colours were also used in the final blocking. I also tried to recreate real castle spaces in the level, as the throne room, courtyard or king's tower.
STEP 4: BUILDING GEOMETRY
As I was building the level, I had to think about how to set up the geometry to properly guide the player,
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
Besides from having to build up a level, I decided to try to give some environmental storytelling with a really basic narrative (a king who has been betrayed and now protects the tower), and some interesting events that can create interesting reactions in the player. This has been an intense exercise, but I think I have learned a lot from it, I hope you like it.
