Untitled Adventure Game Postmortem -
Level Design
"Adventure" is a linear, exploration, adventure game. The purpose of this project was to create an immersive experience where the player could explore different environments, climb up or down ledges, open chest and collect items, and more. This project took me and a team of four other level designers 2 months to make. This project is one of my latest and I am very proud of how it turned out. This page is going to take you through the process of how I felt during the creation of this game.
Adventure Project
Phase: Alpha - Level Start
This is the block mesh stage of the process. Here is the beginning of my level. I wanted the player to start in a campsite. At first it seemed like a good idea, which it still was in Beta, but after finding out which order my level was going to be in, I had to figure out a way to get the player from a higher location down into my campsite.
Adventure Project
Phase: Beta - Level Start
Eventually I figured out a way to get the player down from high above to down below into my campsite. However the cliffs I used got in the way of lots of objects I had in Alpha, so I had to change around the environment. Less trees, more rocks, more bushes, and pushing the camp fire and tent off to the side.
Adventure Project
Phase: Alpha - Focal Point
For my focal point, I was really hung up on what to do for this section. When I came up with the idea of a city, I ran into another problem. There was a lot of space in this area and I didn't know how I was going to fill in the space. Sure I could have just put a bunch of buildings but then realized how quickly I ran out of space. I knew that the buildings I had in Alpha were not going to be the same size in Beta so I had to figure out a plan to make this section feel just right in the eyes of the player.
Adventure Project
Phase: Beta - Focal Point
After searching for the right sized buildings, I noticed that I had to do a lot of resizing of these building assets. I scaled, rotated, and moved these buildings into certain positions around the area so that they fit well, not only in the space I had, but in the space that the player would be walking through. The hard part was making collisions for these buildings. So many gaps for the player to get stuck on. Eventually, I was able to get everything into proper position and fill in the space so the player can feel like they are in an underground city.
Adventure Project
Phase: Alpha - Level End
For my level end, I wanted to keep it simple. The player goes through a city and climbs their way out and gets a smell of fresh air. I pondered how I was going to simulate this. Then at the end of the level, I made a road leading out into the next level. However, it did not make sense later on to have this road here. So I needed to change this scene for Beta. At the time I did not know how I was going to go about changing this scene.
Adventure Project
Phase: Beta - Level End
After finding some rock assets, plants, and certain material textures, I was able to create the same mountain environment that I had created in the beginning of my level. I am extremely proud of how the rock walls in my level turned out. After I was given some feedback on my mountains, I was told that taking random rock and putting them together at random, would create the immersion I was going for. As you can see in the picture, it blended the environment together really well. I'm glad I switched gears here and made the necessary adjustments to make my level better.
