Project Overview
This project is intended to grow my skills and learn new way to prototype my levels using developer tools, trying to understand how a company like Techland works to make astonishing levels.
This project has many goals: I wanted to improve my knowledge about developer tools and my skills in designing first person level with the usage of heights and freedom of movement within my systems, being helped by Dying Light and its flow based movement.
Genre: First Person Adventure Game
Platform: PC/Console
Engine : Chrome Engine 6
Softwares: Dying Light Developer Tools
If you want a more detailed explanation of the design process behind this level, here is a pdf LDD
Narrative Brief
"You woke up on a strange isle, the men of Rais took you there. Now you must find a way out to come back to the streets of Harran, so you can kill every single man which put you there."
Level Preproduction
The level is divided in three parts, in which I tried to put different experiences for the player.
The main goal of this project wasn't to create a brand new mission, but it was messing around with these tools trying to create something coherent and consistent, with a pretty strong system based on landmarks and invisible paths at its very base.
Zone 1: Dock
Zone 2: Sewer
Zone 3: Favelas
Software: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Level Flow and Gameplay Beats
The level has three main areas in which there are different events which will let the player face different challenges by taking the experience from an easy and "relaxed" one to an intense and difficult ending moment (the combat with the Demolisher)
The player will mainly meet different hordes which can be easily been overcame somehow, while the boss fights are purposely thought to be challenging experiences, even if the system is not so difficult.
Also, the player will be able to find two weapons, so the experience is mainly based on fly and movement, and not on combat.
Enemies
The enemies will be mostly Biters except for the second section of the level which will be full of Bombers and Virals, resulting in an intense chase sequence before the end, where the player will face a miniboss and a boss battle.
Enemies inside the level:
Biters
Bombers
Virals
Goons
Demolishers
Every enemy’s description inside the Level Design Document is directly and freely taken from the game Wiki
3D Implementation
The Developer Tools are a huge helpful software which helped me a lot in implementing my ideas.
They were pretty simple to use and full of interesting stuff with which I could experiment and iterate the level, being able to manage the AI and the prefab with ease.
Because the purpose of the project was not to produce an entire mission, but only a "polished blockout", I will try to script and modify the text events in the future, to try to make my own adventure inside the game.
The implementation is work in progress.
Level Flow and Pacing
The level is characterized by different level of intensity. In between those spikes there are more relaxed moments which consist of pure exploration and looting or the finding of a weapon.
