Embedded Files
Death Hunting
Project Snapshot
This is a Fallout 4 level where the player needs to escape from an abandoned hospital while being careful with the powerful enemy. The level is inspired by the combat with Tyrant in the Resident Evil 2, where the player needs to search the police station under the pressure of the Tyrant's chase.
Engine: Creation Kit
Base Game: Fallout 4
Development Time: 60 hours
Level Design Documents
ChuZ_DeathHunting_LDD.docxGoals
The design goals will mainly focused on the combat design:
It should be clear and easy for players to understand that they should run away instead of fighting with the powerful enemy.
The combat experience should be various and balanced well that the player could enjoy the combat with ordinary enemies and being careful with the powerful enemy.
The pressure of survival should help player engage with the game while not feeling overwhelming.
The conveyance design should be more natural and straight-forward as the player could be very tensive and hard to think too deep.
Design
The balance of the combat experience.
Before the building the actual level, I start to analyze and set the relationship between the enemy and player:
To satisfy the requirement, I choose the feral ghoul as my ordinary enemy and the super mutant as the powerful enemy.
Analyzation of the super mutant characteristics
Analyzation of the feral ghoul characteristics
Considering about the combat with Tyrant in Resident Evil 2, though the player have to run away for the most of the time, there are still several methods to restrict the Tyrant's movement to help regain the power for the player instead of feeling being punished by the game.
Luckily, there is a weapon called Cryolator in the game which could be used to freeze the enemy.
So I consider and design my combat experience by analyzing the relationship between the player's action and enemy:
By these analyzations, I could get some balance situations that I need to take care of:
2. Design the combat with the 'invulnerable' enemy
In the Resident Evil 2, even the player can not kill the Tyrant, there are still some action the player could do to restrict the Tyrant and therefore feeling not so overwhelming. So clearly, though the player can not kill the powerful enemy, there still should be some methods for the player to confront the enemy and feel empowered.
Get familiar with the space
It will be very frustrating for the player to run around a unfamiliar space and try to dodge the attack from the powerful enemy. So, in my level, the powerful monster will only spawn after the player has searched the whole area and then get the key to the next area.
Locking system
Like in Half-life: alyx, Dead by daylight, I set a terminal for most of the door. This terminal could execute the lock & unlock order. So the player could choose to lead the powerful enemy in the room, and use the terminal to lock the enemy inside.
However, the lock will be automatically deactivated after 5 seconds, as it will be too easy if the player could lock a powerful enemy inside a room forever.
Elevator needs time
If the players gets very familiar with the layout, it is possible that they could just run at the fast speed and get to the safe place all at once, ignoring the powerful enemy's threat.
So, I set the elevator to the next area needs time to reach the floor the player is currently on. It forces the player face with the powerful enemy, which could help the player feel pressure and therefore get more engaged.
'He is coming!'
It could be very frustrating if the player didn't realize the powerful enemy has appeared and bump into the enemy without preparation.
So, I set very a huge explosion and the broken wall to indicate the powerful enemy is coming, which clearly adds much pressure to the player too.("I can break the wall to chase you!")
Release the stress
As I mentioned, although the player could confront with the powerful enemy with the weapon and locking system, most of the time the player still needs to run away under pressure. At the end, the pressure will reach its peak and it needs to be released, like the classical last hit with rocket launcher in Resident Evil series.
So, I set the minigun at the end and gather all the powerful enemies, in order to give player a chance to slay these frustrating monsters and feel empowered.
3. Lighting conveyance
As in the level, player will spend a lot of time running away from the enemy, therefore it will be very important that the player could easily know where to go and not get into some dead ends.
So, I set lighting as the main conveyance for the player as I believe it is straight-forward and easy to understand.
Dark & Bright Contrast
As the story happens in an abandoned hospital, it is natural to set the environment to be dark, which also helps the lighting conveyance to be apparent, as the contrast between the dark and bright area could easily help player focus on the goal where they should go.
Reuse of space: two set of lighting
As mentioned, the powerful enemy will only appear after the player has searched the whole area. However, I do want to make the reuse of the space much more interesting that even the players have already get familiar with the environment, they will still feel pressure.
Therefore, for the second floor, the overall lighting setting will change as the player activate the door to the key room. The brightness will be decreased, and the light will be colored with red and green to hint the right and wrong direction.
With these setting, the environment is clearly more dynamic and consistent with the gameplay experience.
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