Embedded Files
Full Playthrough
Summary
The game places you in a dark and twisted world where you must escape from the necromantic clutches of death and while bearing a small town's wrath on your conscience. In this journey, you will endure against the Watchmen's relentless pursuit by harnessing your tools and surroundings to gain an upper edge and ascend to greatness in the eye of danger.
About my Level
Unity, Probuilder, Timeline, Illustrator
VGDC Club Project
Developed in roughly 7 weeks during the school quarter.
Inspired By
Bloodborne (Level)
Breath of the Wild (Systemic Interactions)
Challenge
My goal was to make a linear level that supported systemic and emergent gameplay that gave players multiple ways to solve problems. I wanted to create exciting and fun interactions between mechanics while teaching players. I also had to take the top-down camera into perspective when designing the level and decided to play with the sense of verticality that worked well with the camera style.
The level is done mostly in whitebox with bits of set dressing. The main focus is level design and not environmental art.
Pre-production
Brainstorming
When designing a level, I like to write down mechanics and find ways to make interesting level setpieces. I would quickly sketch out an idea and move on to the next. From the start, my producer visioned the game to have both fire and water elements so I jotted down ideas of what fire can do as well as water.
Bubble Diagrams / Gamebeats
I would write down detailed game beats of the golden path in a notepad file and create a bubble diagram of the game beats. It was a way for my team members such as our producer and writer to get a general outline of how the level would play out.
Tutorial layout (Created after inital layout for playtest #2)
Paper Design before blockout
->
Overview of Finished level
Development Process
Blocking
I blocked the level using Unity's Probuilder tool. Existing assets were temporarily placed to give a general feel for the area.
Early blockout
Big Iterations
As the level was developed in tandem with the mechanics, it went through several iterations. A lot of the visioned mechanics weren't able to make it through and during our first playtest the general feedback:
Too much walking
Map felt large
Lack of challenge
Torch Holdable didn't have much use
After the first playtest I focused on figuring out what existing mechanics we had that I could make interesting. One thing that we found fun was picking up boxes and throwing them around so I wanted to incorporate them into the second playtest. In the second playtest I added
Tutorialization of basic game mechanics using boxes
Tutorialization of the torch
Map was made smaller
Warehouse changed to introduce the flamethrower
Certain areas were cut such as the cave and castle area to focus resources on polishing the existing map.
The lower village went through a large iteration, where it was first designed to be the first big encounter against a hoard of enemies, but ended up changing to be a puzzle where the player uses all the holdables introduced beforehand to open a locked door leading to a fight against a mob of enemies. An elevator was later added that leads back to a locked gate seen earlier in the level, allowing players to progress forward with the knowledge of waterbombs dousing fire pits.
Video of early blocking for team's showcase
Tutorialization of basic pickup/drop mechanics using boxes
Tutorialization of torch holdable
Scripting
I scripted the moment-to-moment events for the level. Some of the scripted events were done using Unity's Timeline tool such as the gate's locking/opening and others were done by writing in C#.
Enemies run forward looking for the player after escaping the lab.
Gate locking
Flipping 2 switches to open gate
Wall opening after explosion VFX
Design Philosophy
Vista
When starting this level, I looked from a macro perspective to get an idea of the space before getting into the core.
For example, when the player exits the tutorial lab, they can see the looming village at a lower level, showcasing an area that they will explore later on.
This was inspired by levels from the Soul's series, where you can see areas from the outside before visiting them in the future.
Guiding the player
Leading lines
Directing hte player the connection of the door to the switch
Directing the player to the upwards
Post-Mortem
Things that I would've done differently today
Looking back the level was way too big in scope to be completed in roughly 7 weeks while also juggling school work. I would cut down the initial layout by more than half to be able to have a more polished experience. I am proud of what has been created within the time I had.
This project taught me that mechanics should be ready to be tested before starting level design. I went through big iterations because certain mechanics weren't able to be created resulting in changes through development that could have been avoided. In the future, I would keep it in mind and work with existing mechanics to make a more coherent level.
For future projects, I should consider using metrics more when designing levels as this was the first project where I used it. In the future, I plan to measure out mechanics before starting the blockout.
I'm generally very satisfied with my macro-design of the space though in the future I need to take into account the micro-design as well.
Thank you for checking out Vestige!
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