The Wall Postmortem
Introduction
For this level design project, we were tasked with developing an entire level in blockmesh along with a mechanic to teach the player using a version of the Adventure project. Creative vision stated that the player controls a treasure hunter, setting must take place on earth, present time or near future, and may include light sci-fi, but not science fantasy. The level should play no longer than 8 minutes on the golden path, but ideally within 3-6. We could not modify the player character at all, nor could we lose possession of the player character. There were other smaller restrictions, but most of the rest was up to creativity. We utilized Perforce to share our builds and obtain feedback on the design.
With this in mind, I wanted to set out to create a section of the Great Wall of China with the idea that there were secret rooms hidden under the wall. The player crash lands from a helicopter just outside and finds that a rival team has blown open the wall before the player arrives. The level then proceeds through multiple rooms to introduce the player to the mechanic of the level. The mechanic is lightly based on some puzzles from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and requires the player to rotate an object to match another object in the room to unlock the way to the next area.
What Went Right
The Wall: I am generally happy with the way that the wall was crafted. The rooms flow nicely as the player weaves through the main chamber. I utilized the main chamber as kind of an extended rest area between the rooms and as a familiar place the player can orient themselves in. The way I structured everything made it feel more natural and not too “back-tracky”. Each room felt like a secret area that wasn’t meant to be found, which supports my level narrative.
The Puzzle: My rotation mechanic worked as I had intended through each room. It was easy to understand and provided just enough challenge to make the player think about which way they should move. I added gears to the moving part to hint to the player which shape moved and which remained static. I feel this made a nice subtle contrast between the puzzle pieces.
The Mesh: As I continue to make projects, I feel that my ability to craft objects from blocks is improving. In this project, I was able to bring to life several aspects thanks to my attention to detail. I will continue to place extra effort on this stage to mitigate potential issues later in the design process.
The Efficiency: I took my organizational skills very seriously in this project and utilized the folder subsystems in the Outliner. This allowed for fast iteration of objects whilst remaining efficiently organized to find objects or pieces easily. This reproduction method saved a lot of searching for pieces of the mesh and helped my speed in a significant way.
What Went Wrong
The Puzzle Unlock: A bug I ran into about halfway through the project had me question whether my methods were efficient for what I needed from the level. I had the puzzle unlock the door whenever a specific cube in the shape overlapped a point in the box. This worked well enough and achieved the goal I wanted, however it also meant that any overlap would trigger the unlock function. Reflecting back, I believe I know the solution, but during the process, I had no clue how to address this.
The Puzzle, but the Bad Part: While the mechanic worked as I intended, the way it function had an unintentional side effect in that the player could make the shape move off axis if they pressed another button before the shape finished moving. To address this, I move the control boxes further away and on different platforms so that the player could not reach them in time to send the shape off-axis. For the final room, I oriented the two puzzle boxes to not face the player, which would cause the player to have to move between the two to confirm how the shape was oriented. These solutions helped eliminate the issue, however it is still something that I would address should the project see further development.
The Set Dressing: While I think the level has sufficient dressing to give the feel I wanted for the region, I don’t think I sufficiently portrayed the story aspect to the level. To address this, I would add some corpses from the previous team strewn throughout the various parts of the level. Additionally, I would add exploration equipment (dynamite, backpacks, maps) to give the impression that the player is not the first person to come across this area.
Conclusion
This project gave me a great joy to produce as I truly felt free to craft what I wanted to do. Making a unique mechanic from scratch was very rewarding and taught me ways to tackle problems that I hadn’t had previously. I leaned into my organizational skills to ensure tight and cohesive Outliner folders to enable fast reproduction and iteration. I appreciate how much care and attention it takes to make a level feel lived in pre-mesh application more than ever. It also taught careful consideration on how a level flows and how everything connects together as I chose to weave in and out of the level without making it feel repetitive. Level design continues to have a significant impact on my enthusiasm towards game design and feel confident that it will only increase from here.
Adventure Project Postmortem
Introduction
In this project, we were challenged to create a level for a game called Adventure. Creative vision of the project dictated that the game must follow a walking simulator style gameplay. This means that the player should be able to complete the level simply by walking, jumping, and interacting with certain objects to progress. Due to this, we were not able to add gameplay mechanics outside of what existed in the project. This restraint allowed for us to focus on the design of the level to create interesting pathways, platforming, and world building to craft a memorable experience. Other restraints included the time period being modern-ish (1700s and up) as well as real world, so no sci-fi or fantasy elements. With this guidance, we had to obtain references from real world locations to base our levels off of. I chose to base my setting on Chernobyl, focusing on the abandoned city, ruined labs, and destruction left by the catastrophic event. In my level, the player must navigate the ruined city, locate the lost laboratory to obtain experiment files, and then escape. After crafting the level, we were paired in teams and tasked with connecting our levels together to create one giant level. This meant that the player must be able to complete the level from start to finish without being able to go outside of the playable area. We utilized Perforce, a program used for source control, to enable us to submit finished builds, and work on the project simultaneously without obstructing other’s work. The final iteration of the project saw us replacing our blockouts with meshes to give the game a more finished feel.
What Went Right
A Great Team: It would be an insult to say that having a great team didn’t influence my enthusiasm and desire to perform at a high level. Seeing other people’s designs inspired me to focus on presenting an interesting and unique experience in my level design. Their feedback during playthroughs helped me identify areas of improvement and fine tune my golden path, trimming unnecessary detail while retaining the identity of my design.
Level Flow: I am proud of the flow that the player experiences through the level and it feels natural as it's moved through. I was able to make the playable area feel like everything placed made sense and wasn’t forced. The structure also allowed for me to optimize my play area by building into the mountain in the first area to lead to the second. It creates a totally different feel than the first area while still keeping some of that identity. I also felt that the final area gave a great sense of relief as the player emerged from a more claustrophobic setting into a vast open forest.
My Initial Blockout: I received a lot of compliments from different areas about my initial blockout. I spent a significant amount of time making sure that it was as detailed as possible to eliminate the need to fill in gaps when it came time to replace them with meshes. I followed the advice from all the material given to really flesh out my vision from the get go. This held a significant impact on me and how I will handle all future level designs.
No. Invisible. Wall.: I had a very strict goal from the beginning: no invisible walls. This particular design choice sticks out to me in every game I play as a way to settle for less than excellence. There are solutions to virtually (pun intended) any situation that might call for an invisible wall to be placed. So, due to my extreme distaste for this design choice, I settled for nothing less than zero invisible walls. Thankfully, though some solutions took longer than others, I was able to achieve this goal in full.
Creative Use of Leading Lines: Another, call it pet-peeve, of mine are super obvious leading lines. Save for the more casual games that reach a younger audience where it might be necessary, I appreciate the immense effort that goes into leading a player subconsciously towards their objective without taking away their power of discovery. I focused on this element to utilize the environment to lead the player using curves, fallen trees, lights, and other elements that all say “go here” without ever telling the player that directly.
What Went Wrong
The Train Problem: In the first section of my level, I have a crashed train car that leads the player towards the next area. The original angle of the car allowed for the player to climb it and escape the level. I tried several solutions before coming to the final one, including covering the car with debris, adding fire, putting trees in the way, but nothing felt right. Finally, I manipulated the angle of the car enough so that when the player lands on it, they slide to the ground below. Initially, however, the fall was too great and it would kill the player, so I added a platform, which in the level was just the missing part of the bridge that you must fall through to progress, to break the player’s fall so they did not die. I really struggled to come up with a solution that felt right for this problem, but it ended up being a solution I was very happy with.
Trees, And Their Angles: Since my level takes place in the forest, it obviously needed trees. I created rudimentary but detailed trees in my blockout as placeholders, but this proved troublesome when it came to escaping the playable area. Due to this, I had to carefully think through orientation, placement, and density of trees so I didn’t give the players a chance to escape from where I wanted them to go. Note to self: trees can be such a pain.
A Bland Tunnel: One of the stand out areas to me is the tunnel part in the third section of the level. In my first few iterations, however, it felt kind of bland with nothing really standing in the way of the player, which meant just a lot of moving forward. Generally, it felt too pristine compared to most of the level, and that did not fit the design. In the final design, I made the tunnel more dilapidated and had things obscuring the player’s movement, causing them to weave around and jump over obstacles. This fit the theme of the design much better than the original setup.
Connecting The Dots: My blockout had areas made for transitions thanks to the guidance given prior to starting, but I underestimated how much of an effect it had on my design. The connecting area to the start of my level was a pathway that I created for a scenic effect that was not playable when the level existed in a vacuum. When connecting the levels however it created a new set of problems that needed a solution. Places that I didn’t account for when checking for out of bounds play came to light quickly and required immediate solutions. Inevitably, this wasn’t time consuming, but did require an unexpected additional amount of work to solve.
Never Enough Time: It’s cliché, but there truly is never enough time to finish a creative vision on a deadline. I had a few plans to replace some of my blockout with assets, but had to settle for applying materials to make them stand out less. I also intended on using a landscape through sections one and three of my level, but after reading several classmates struggling and running into a multitude of issues, I decided against it and opted to utilize foliage and shrubbery to break up a lot of the areas that I would have used the landscape for. I am proud of the amount of work that I got done, but I think you can always continue improving on time management skills no matter how experienced anyone may be.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this project taught me so many valuable things, from how to work with source control, to level flow, to sticking to creative vision and so much more. I feel more confident in my ability to create meaningful decisions when crafting a level and defining a path for players to follow. I’ve learned how valuable iteration is and how every step creates opportunities to improve upon designs and refine a creative vision. Learning how to navigate source control has better equipped me and my knowledge of how a team would operate in a development environment. Most importantly, I continue to experience other people’s talents and receive invaluable feedback from experts in how to grow in my field. It’s truly humbling to see how passionate others are about game design and how that passion becomes a product that deserves recognition. Finally, this project has solidified my interest in level design as something that I want to continue to focus on in my career as a game designer.