Desert Third Person Shooter
Semi-Linear Level Design
Story Summary
You play as a mercenary that has been hired with the task of retrieving a valuable goblet located inside of a mosque in an abandoned desert village.
Your employer has also learned that there are bandits who are too looking for the same goblet, and they are probably not friendly.
Project Breakdown
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3 weeks full time (8 hours / day)
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Created in Unreal Engine 4
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Focus on creating a semi linear experience
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Marketplace assets/plugins used
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Third Person Shooter Kit
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Blockout Tools Plugin
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Overview
Top Down
Multiple Paths
Level Flowchart
Tension Graph
Level Philosophy
During the conception phase of this project, I had written the goal of the level as an semi-linear experience that would have multiple paths to its objective and in turn would naturally create emergent gameplay situations and replayability.
This philosophy would translate naturally to the level design, where I would create an almost sandbox-like environment with different buildings and spots which are interlinked with one or more paths. I also wanted to have the level flow and tension to be similar no matter the path the player would take, with an structure that would remind of the 3 act structure through all paths.
Design Techniques
Funnel & Reveal
I used the technique to funnel the player in tight paths through cliffs before opening up to the desert village. The combination of this and lighting HDR adaptation resulted in an bigger contrast to the open area which in turns makes it feel even bigger.
This moment also points the player towards the landmark and main objective of the level.
Landmark
The mosque area also acts as the main landmark of the level, commonly known as weenie.
During the development of this project, I kept in mind that no matter which path the player chooses, they will be able to have a view of the mosque, resulting in an mental map model while also preventing them from getting lost.
Pre-production
Areas & Flowchart
Before I began working on the level, I first defined which areas I wanted to include in this project and how they link to each other.
This led me to create a rough flowchart of the level, which would act as a base for me to use as an reference and iterate upon.
Interest Curve
I also started planning on an interest curve the level should have before creating a rough sketch of the map. With this in mind, I ended up creating an rough interest curve.
This would guide me on the structure and flow of the map when the time came to draw sketches.
Map Planning
In order to properly create the map, I sketched rough map layouts in paper that would allow me to use as reference for the initial blockout.
After the initial blockout, I ended up iterating on the map drawing, changing and adaptating areas and scenarios that didn't worked.
I repeated this process 3 times before arriving at the final map.
Gathering References
While drawing the map, I also gathered numerous references that would guide me in the blockout phase.
This meant having moodboards, floor plans and watching videos of people walking through the areas that I would block out.
My main goal was to reach reach a balance between believable and fun areas.
Post Mortem
I had lots of fun working in this project. I got inspired in an semi-linear project after playing through Dishonored, and even though I didn't reach the Arkane level of quality, I'm still proud of myself for creating an semi-linear experience. However, there's still some stuff that I wasn't happy with and I would change if I were to redo this project.
Combat scenarios - The combat scenarios felt stale for most of the areas, with the exception of the Street Market. I think it really needed more verticality and cover spots to allow for more ways to tackle the enemy AI while also spicing up the combat. I failed to take this into consideration during my initial sketch and blockout of the level.
Traversal options - Even though the map is semi-linear in it's high level concept, I felt that it could really use more low-level semi-linearity. This comes after I played through Dishonored and noticed how even the simplest of the encounters have multiple ways to be tackled, by either using an box, climbing an small hill or even having multiple small paths to deal with the enemies.
In the end though, this project heavily improved my blockout skills, and now I have more insight into what makes good combat arenas and how to properly create them. I also now have more knowledge on how semi-linearity works, both at the high-level and at the low-level. Overall, I feel like I accomplished my goal of creating an semi-linear experience.
Thanks for reading!