LOST TEMPLE - OVERVIEW
SUMMARY
Lost Temple is an ancient underground temple recently discovered and being raided by rogue treasure hunters. Our explorer stumbles upon the archaeological find to gain knowledge but now they have to gain bodies if they want to preserve the dig
ABOUT MY LEVEL
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Developed in 1 week half-time
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Unreal Engine, Blender, Photoshop
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Assets taken from IWALS by Jakub , Blockout Tools Plugin by Dmitry, and Modular Sci-Fi Village by A.R.M.S.
INSPIRED BY
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Farcry 3
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Assassin's Creed Odyssey
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Tomb Raider
THEORY
To match the theme of the player possibly researching an archeaological dig, I decided to delve further into the theory of level design. There are a few concepts that I considered: space, story values, and path junctures. A level can get intimate with a narrow space or give room for the player to explore with a prospect space. It's up to the designer to use proper shape language to warn attentive players of what types of spaces they are dealing with. Nodes networks within path junctures can be used to properly organize the space so the players can still navigate the environment well even when they are lost.
PRE-PROD
A level's compositional layout is determined by many things but the two I focused on for this week's level were story beats and character ability. When you set up the lore of the level, the designer gets a feeling for the brevity of the enemy's goals and the hero's goals. What limits will they push to accomplish them? Determining the physical ability and mental state of the pawns in the story will in turn let you know what they are capable of.
Designing around a pawn's potential rather than a predestined layout will let the designer add their own unique spin to the level. In the sense of this level, you are an intrepid explorer capable of mountain climbing, creative thinking, and lifting heavy objects. This means that the world can be designed to facilitate platforming puzzles integrated with block movement. Also, knowing that the player character is a researcher prone to one-liners set the tone for the game. It means that I can set up a few "cartoonish" moments such as the player sneaking up on an NPC and pushing them into a waterfall.
PACING DIAGRAM
LOST TEMPLE - PLAYTHROUGH
POST-MORTEM
This week I struggled a lot with setting up the enemy AI to run scripted event. I ended up leaving them in as pawns with an idea in mind to have unique interactions interspersed throughout the level. The idea that I was developed from the abilities of the pawns rather than refining the layout from my sketch backfired when I couldn't set them up properly. However, I do think that this assignment has a unique skeleton or backbone. With a little more time, I could create an interesting level that makes the player want to know more about the environment.
Being wary of the story beats also helped me easily create an interesting architectural experience. In turn, combat is engaging in the area when you looking at misting waterfall and big braziers as you're eliminating the enemies.
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All in all, I enjoyed working on this week's assignment and I hope to be able delve more into the game design portion of this level in the future.