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WEEK 6: 17.02.25
WEEK 6: 17.02.25
By the start of this week, I had gone into week 6 with all of the research completed except for some tutorials I wanted to look into for the modelling research. I did this to save time on other research areas during Week 5, since spending more time on those would be more important. I can always look at the tutorials for any modelling techniques closer to the time, since they will be more helpful in the production phase anyway. By the end of the week, I had made a rough greybox for the level and added the next set of key goals to aim towards. Closer to the level design process, I intend to flesh out this greybox since any ideas that either I, my teammates or my peers have could influence the level structure, so not adding too much detail may help to save time later on if I have to end up removing them. This was a productive week as I was able to get all of my intended pre-production done within the time, this sets me up nicely for production as it means that from my time plan, I don't have to cut out any backlog weeks where I instead reflect upon my existing work to see if anything can be improved. This means that my time plan was successful in getting me to complete my planning within a week, leaving enough time for any issues I may encounter during production weeks.
Now that the GDD was essentially finished, I can add little updates as I go along, including images from the game and means of monitoring progress. I shared the idea with my group that when we begin production next week, we will begin marking down models we have completed on the "Model List" section at various points to help us review how each other's progress is going and stop to help others if necessary or beneficial to our group pipeline.
Why is it useful to evaluate your work?
Evaluating your work helps to identify strengths and areas for development.
If we can do that, what will it allow you to do?
Doing this will allow you to make better work going forward, as you may apply a different workflow.
If you make better decisions from it, then what?
Receiving continuous self-feedback and having someone else reflect on your work will help, as this method of evaluation can help to adapt your work for the better.
For feedback to be helpful, it should be specific and constructive, highlighting any faults rather than just blatant criticism. Areas to evaluate depend on the area you believe needs improvement. Design and Aesthetics, for example, could cover:
Visual Appeal, Colour Schemes, Creativity, Key Details.
Marking off of these can help give players more specific guidance. Because of this task, I can help develop my feedback to help others while also looking out for uses of these in feedback I receive to make the most out of my peers' opinions. Answering these questions during college helped refresh the key principles of pre-production.
This level was designed by me and Reece as a base to develop later; the green and grey represent his level, while the white represents the polar landscape of mine. At this initial stage, we didn't know exactly where each enemy camp would go, so we placed a large one in each level as a foundation. We kept these early designs simple to just show the potential biomes. When the level starts to take more shape, we can add greater detail and develop specific areas depending on form responses. For an early draft, this helped us visualise a base shape for each level, which is important to set our limits on what space we have to work with.
This is a later model with greater detail. While my large enemy camp was placed blocking the boss, it is now positioned in the middle of the map, making it more easily accessible. I felt this was a necessary design choice as the player didn't have to attempt this and go to the shark boss fight (represented by the purple pixel in the top right) if they want, but if they feel that they need to get stronger, they can attempt the minor camps across the level. While this design isn't final or perfect, the improvement from the last camp helps close in on the final version, ready for grey boxing.
I remade the base layout from the original map that Reece and I designed together. Using the select tool, I can draw over the part I want to be accessible to the player and then raise the rest of it to create the surroundings. I made changes to the initial design as I thought it gave me more space to work with and I could adapt what space I had in the middle over time.
Raising the border with the non-selected area, I can create a space for the player to walk around in. Completing this step means the base layout for the level is complete.
Adding markers after a basic sculpt, smoothing areas and adding greater detail, with the large boxes resembling enemy camp locations. Adding clumps of trees and resources, shown by the smallest boxes across the map, gets players to look around rather than being in concentrated spaces.
When placing enemy camps, I took inspiration from the Alabaster Icelands from Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Within this level of the game, points of interest like Avalugg's Legacy are unreachable at first, but the player is drawn there due to narrow side cliffs that point the player toward the landmark. When the player arrives, they have to search for someone across the Icelands, getting them to explore the outer areas. With my level, I want to achieve a similar effect where the player notices the main enemy camp but may find it difficult to progress, so at the same time, a lighter camp in the top left is also visible so they can head around the level perimeter if the main point of interest is too challenging. I have left enough space to construct a base, making use of the mechanics within the level while also rewarding the player for exploring this lighter intensity enemy horde. At the back of this enemy horde is the player's first access to metal, meaning they can craft some stronger weapons and therefore find it easier to defend themselves against the larger enemy horde.
After going into the level for size comparison, I realised the level is much larger than it appears when editing the landscape, so I downscale the map for less dead space, avoiding the player walking aimlessly for too long. I did this to try to stick to the "Rule of 40", where in an open space the player should be able to walk into something interesting within 40 seconds. This means, like with the design of Breath of the Wild, the player is more likely to run into resource spots, enemy camps, or helpful traders.
Instead of looking at the level as a whole, I focus on one section at a time. This helped me piece the space together and separate the land to make each place feel like it has its own point of interest. Starting with this enemy camp, it is almost immediately visible to the player, and being lower down makes the player look down on the camp, perhaps making it seem less intimidating to draw in players. Being lower down is also more practical, as they'd be out of the way of any cold wind.
Now I work on the second minor camp, being raised with two optional paths, giving the player some more choice and being higher up is more practical this time, as it is more intimidating and can conceal a hidden salvager path. Since the Salvagers offer trades, I could add some worldbuilding as if the salvager is well hidden, as they are hiding from the nearby scrapper camp.
In between the level's final structure, I focus on some smaller areas of interest, including where I would place traders, random chests, and resources. As previously listed, they follow a scale of most to least interesting, so I focus on the traders while I have the most space left. This means they are more likely to have a designated place rather than be randomly scattered across the level, meaning I can have better spots for them than I would if going in a different order.
This is the final sculpture of the level from above, with a key detailing some important points. I used various tools, including Smooth, Flatten and Inverse Sculpting (Shift + Sculpt), to shape the level. By prioritising enemy camps, I could develop areas built for one of the more important features, then move on to the trader camps, as they were smaller and were placed so that they would be out of sight. This made for a good worldbuilding feature to have the salvagers place their camps so that the Scrappers couldn't find them. Also in charge of game balancing, I designed each salvager spot with an intention. The first is within sight but not reachable, meaning the player has to find another way around. This salvager will have two trades to raise an expectation that each will have more than one trade. The next is a larger settlement containing three salvagers, one of which will have trades that are purposefully bad to test if players have paid attention to the crafting recipes to work out if their trades are a good deal. The final is more hidden, but for some narrative, they are close to a scrapper camp, but well hidden. To expand on this, I gave this salvager some more personality as they trade exclusively in berries, a limited resource that makes their harder to find trade have greater payoff. After red and orange, I focused on spots of interest that are beneficial to the player, including ore deposits where the most valuable material in the game can be collected and chests, which can contain a random array of items. Later on in my time plan, I can develop specifically which of these green spots works best as a chest or ore deposit, due to playtesting. This would depend on whether the chests or ore are more valuable, so I'll come back to specific later, it was more important to get the best locations for either noted down. After these points of interest, I used blues to highlight other areas of interest. What I ended up with was a map with a lot of scattered dead space, meaning it's not too concentrated for the player to find a specific section too boring. The graph helped me to visualise how I've used the space and going forward may allow me to make more informed decisions. At first, I had my doubts about all the open areas, but realised that it was beneficial as it helped to have suitable areas for one of the mechanics.
From this, I use the critical path from my research to find the most anticipated way through my level. To try this out, I had a few peers traverse the level and recognise their patterns, this is what I ended up with. The route covers the entrance of my level on the left to the boss at the top. I'm happy with this route as I had designed the terrain to guide the players like this, with enough leniency for them to head off route. The path tries to highlight areas early on, encouraging players to look for other instances of these structures on their own.
Sculpting specific areas to cover points of interest makes the player look elsewhere, obscuring the big camp in the middle and encouraging them to go up to the top left camp. This takes a twist on my inspiration of the Alabaster Icelands, where the central focus is instead hidden to suggest to the players to look around for resources before jumping straight into the main enemy location. What I'm most pleased about is that after clearing this camp, players sometimes missed the slope up to the green point and went back, not realising there is a one-way drop, meaning players from that angle could catch a glance at the major settlement. After going up the slope past the top camp, they could collect the resources the camp rewards and head down another one-way point, which took them through the larger salvager area.
If they're interested, they can see what the salvagers have to offer, otherwise, they can continue back the way they came, but they are more likely to miss the green spot behind the salvager camp. Since the assets aren't in place yet, I can test this again later on to see if my theory is proven right. This would end up having an effect where the player gets to explore more of the level to give them as much of a chance as possible. By getting the player to approach the level in this way, they are highly likely to encounter the large camp, which was my intention. Depending on how the player feels, they can choose to do one of two things: either be confident enough to give the nearby camp a try or see what else the map has to offer by returning to previous areas or moving on to the right-hand side. From the right, they'll find a rock they can go under taking them into a ring shape spot where they are surrounded aside from a slope with takes them up to a higher level, this allows them to reach a higher point and go over the rock they just went under (shown by orange path). From this, they have a choice of going left or right, and most people turned left. I suspect this to be because of the theory that, since we read from left to right, they process the left-hand side first, which may influence their decision. If they choose this path, there is a long road leading up to the shark boss arena to add to some anticipation, with my intention to place some preparation items like a workbench, metal to help get the player a tool or some armour, and a chest including some basic items. This should give the player enough to still have to explore for resources, but to give them some assistance if they haven't done any exploring. If the player hasn't defeated any major camps like the one in the middle of the map, they won't have any fish to summon the shark boss, so they'll have to come back later and look for more in the meantime. This may encourage them to try the right-hand path on the edge of the map if they haven't already, which doesn't contain a camp with any fish, but has a trader hidden away with a good amount of healing items to help the player through.
Since Andrew will be responsible for modelling the land shark boss, I decided to draw a concept sketch to help him visualise the shark more clearly. Using some reference images, I was able to form an initial design shown on the left; however, I believe it looked too streamlined and didn't have much going on around the facial area, so I added a horn encased in ice, doing this to have consistency across each part of the shark. This had its problems because of the thinner proportions, it could be mistaken for other sea creatures like narwhals. Before going straight into my next iteration, I wanted to experiment with fin and tail shapes. This could be key as I felt like I needed to add some icy attributes to sever it from a generic great white, the main inspirational shark for being considered one of the most deadly sharks in the ocean. With the fin and tail designed, I maintained some sharpness to add to the intimidating presence, as lots of small triangular shapes are scattered around the body, creating more vicious shape language. On a proportional perspective, most of my inspiration was taken from the great white to make its purpose more appropriate.
Its creation stems from a great white that has modified genetics to survive on land in a more frigid environment. To accentuate these features, I gave it thicker fins to slide across the floor, and the sharper fins would more likely cut through thick ice. Ice attributes on the body will help Andrew place the textures across the model. These features helped make an original, consistent design that I'm happy with. Swimming through the ice pool, the surrounding walls will be made out of built-up snow to camouflage the shark better against the walls. This helps it to hunt in that specific spot and gives it reason to be in that specific space, other than just because it's a physically practical space to have a boss. I like the look of the shark as it gets the message across that we wanted, and presented Andrew with the base concept to show off a few ideas of what the model could end up looking like.
Zamtrios - Monster Hunter
Polar Field | Monster Hunter Wiki | Fandom
"Zamtrios is a predator, known to launch surprise attacks on prey from beneath the sea ice. When sufficiently threatened or enraged, it will secrete a reactive fluid through its skin, which solidifies into an ice-like material, forming an "armor" over its skin to prevent damage."
After talking about my design with a tutor, they recommended looking into a concept from Monster Hunter that my design reminded them of. Comparing mine with this, while the swimming in ice is a similarity, this shark is more equipped for land; however, the detail would be too much for our simplified approach to a style. I feel like with my concept, the shark still evokes sharp shape language without being too extreme, whereas with Monster Hunter, a lot of the target creatures seem overwhelming as a way to fluster the player with all these attributes to look out for. For simplicity, the shark will chase the player in an attempt to do lots of damage after emerging from the surface. This will require players to conserve their stamina; otherwise, when the shark circles the player, they won't have enough stamina when it surfaces and becomes a threat. After a while, the shark will become dazed from being surfaced for too long and give the player a window to do some damage.
Getting the GDD finished was a large milestone of this week; I was able to fill in all the information that my peers might've needed. We can also use the Model List and Animation List sections to check off each other's work. This was helpful as marking work as finished on the GDD means we could few what was finished as a team and show what we were aiming to complete next, creating a useful tool that can serve us to monitor our production progress.
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