Zhenghao Chu

Trailer

Level Design Documents

Overview of the Level Map

Goals

The design goals are mainly focused on the arena combat design which provide fast-paced parkour experience.

• There should ample vertical structure built up in the level, meanwhile various connection between the different height levels which smooth the parkour experience.

• There should be several environmental interactive objects spread in the level, which drives player to move around to win the advantage for the combat.

• The combat should also be fast-paced, which means the level needs several methods to motivate the player move and fight fast.

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Design

1.  Ample vertical structure for wonderful parkour experience:

As Dying Light is a type of game that provides ample ways for movement, which means the player could move around space with various methods. Apparently, take advantage of these various movement methods could make the combat much more fascinating.

To accomplish that, I choose to make my level looks like an abandoned construction site:

As most of the building is broken severely, it is easy to give player path to jump over different platforms. While the player could also climb up the low platform, it basically allows the player to get rid of the zombies' encirclement easily.

However, climb and jump over still need time to finish, which is not efficient for the requirement of fast-paced parkour experience, so I also add these structures: 

These structures help the player move much more smoothly through the space, which definitely speed up the player's movement and make the flow of the level much more continuously.

2.  Various environmental interactive objects:

As the player has to fight with large quantity of zombies, some help for damaging the enemy could be very useful and fascinating.

Therefore, I set various traps and interactive objects to provide more methods for the player to fight with the enemy.

While these environmental interactive objects are powerful methods to damage the enemy, they could also motivate the player to move around the space as the gear to activate these objects could be set at some places which require the player's parkour skill.

3.  Build up fast-paced pacing and combat:

This design goal is about how to motivate the player to speed up and accelerate the pacing. First of all, I add time limits for all the objectives that the player has to finish, and separate the level progress like several rounds so  the time provided will keep decreasing.

Secondly, I have set large quantity of zombies wandering around the level at the beginning. They move slowly, but once they get closer enough to form a encirclement, it will be hard to for the player to escape, which means the player has to keep moving all the time.

Additional Screenshots

Post Mortem

What went well:

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What went wrong:

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