Exercise One: Camoleon - Completed

The final project of Semester one was the completion of 'Cameleon' my unique game concept revolving around the theme of camouflage and stealth. I can't help but feel this project got neglected a bit compared with the other two in Exercise Two. It's a shame too as towards the end I realised what an interesting concept this would have been to explore and build on. Perhaps I'll revist it in the future.

The project is presented over two A3 sheets, one sheet is the rough outline and introduction of the concept, explaining the key features and mechanics. The second sheet is a quick sample stage demonstrating proof of concept. Both presentation sheets feature a 360 controller diagram with instructions labelling it. I thought the fact the game only used three buttons was an important thing to point out as the simplest games are often the most popular amongst wider audiences.

One big difference between this stage and the other two is that this game is 2 dimensional. In a way it's easier to draw a two dimensional stage (it requires alot less annotations too) and it doesn't require complicated 3D diagrams. 

Conclusion: Despite spending little time with this project, I actually really like the concept and would consider delving deeper into it at some point. I seemed to put most my energy into Exercise Two as it felt like those were the two that would be most useful to show in a portfolio, to show I can work within limitation of a concept but still express my creativity. 

Exercise Two: Voodoo Dungeon - Completed

The next project I completed was the second half of Exercise Two, my Legend of Zelda dungeon based around the Carry/Voodoo Ball. The Voodoo Dungeon is a a three floor level, the objective being to reach the end boss like other Zelda dungeons. There are mini-objectives to reach this main objective, the most important being the capture of the Houngan's with the Voodoo Ball and carrying them to the main hall before firing them into the giant masks mouth.

The level is presented over three A3 sheets, one sheet per floor of the dungeon. Each floor has its only 2D top down perspective map with a key for all the icons and a 3D room layout of the more complex environments (usually rooms with puzzles). My main focus of this level was to show how versatile the one mechanic I added could be to the gameplay. There are various different uses for the Voodoo Ball demonstrated in both combat and puzzle solving. To keep things fresh I also tried to make sure the rest of the mechanics (hookshot, bow etc) were used in conjunction with my own concepts. As with God of War, a typed level walk through will be attached with the level designs with an in depth explanation of every room, puzzle and environment description. 

Conclusion: This brings Exercise Two to a close. Zelda was a very different type of game to design for compared to God of War. With Zelda I had to think alot more about the environments and puzzles rather than the combat mechanics. Infact, I'd say besides the bosses I didn't even give the combat much consideration at all. Also worth mentioning is it was interesting to do visuals for the presentation on both these games. I used a Zelda-esque colour scheme of greens and yellows for the Voodoo Dungeon and an older, orange and brown pallet for God of War. I imagine if I had the chance to revise all the work on these levels I would change alot. I would especially have liked to add more hidden areas and clearly illustration for a few objects.

Exercise Two: Hyperion’s Prison - Completed

The first thing I finished was the first half of Exercise Two and that was designing a level in an existing video game but implementing a unique mechanic of my own creation. The first one I finished was God of War with my Achillies Armour mechanic. The level is approximately 45 minutes of playtime and is about 50% combat, 20% puzzles and 30% exploring, climbing and platforming. 

The stage is presented over two A3 sheets, the first demonstrating the stage in its whole from a top down 2D perspective complete with a key on the right. Also on this page is some quick bullet point notes on the Achillies Armour and below that is a ‘Pacing Chart’. The pacing chart is something I had seen designers on previous God of War games talk about during development videos so I thought it would be worth doing one myself. The idea is to never let the pacing drop too low and if it does something should be introduced into the level to bring it back up.

The second page took a while longer than the first. The idea was to take the rooms from the 2D map that were difficult to communicate from a 2D perspective and draw them in 3D with annotations. The decision to do this came from the earlier ‘Reverse Level Design’ project when I had trouble communicating a more complex room layout in 2D.

To go along with the two level pages I will also type a level walkthrough with details regarding every room on the map. That along with the two map pages should hopefully be enough for anyone to pick up and understand the entire stage.

Conclusion: Overall I’m glad I picked God of War for this exercise. Although there were limitation on my creativity regarding the mechanics this level has taught me things the others haven’t. Unlike Zelda, God of War is a fast paced, adrenaline pumping game for the masses. It’s important to make sure the game doesn’t slack but it’s also important the game doesn’t repeat itself or start to feel tedious. I tried to make sure the puzzles and fights are placed appropriate in the stage so the player never feels they’ve had a bit too much of one thing at once.

Exercise Two: Hyperion’s Prison

Just like the Voodoo Dungeon, I first drew up some concepts and locations by end before fiddling about in Maya to create a 3D model roughly interlinking rooms and demonstrating a sense of scale. God of War is more restricted in terms of design; combat is the most important theme of the game so alot of the areas need to combat arenas.  Between the combat there are some puzzles or short platforming sections.

One of the best bits about the franchise had been the sense of scale in the visuals and environments. With that in mind wanted to have that focus on scale and ways to portray that scale. The objective of the stage is to steal an item on a platform directly above the location of Hyperion’s prison, where the light is brightest and most dangerous.  At the very start of the stage the player is overlooking the prison, they can see the location of the objective far in the distant and they know their goal is to slowly make their way over to it, exposing themselves to more and more danger the closer they get.

The armour isn’t obtained till about halfway through the stage. The decision for this is the player would not fully appreciate it’s abilities without first witness the danger they would be in without it. The first half is getting closer to the objective and seeing the intense power of the light Hyperion emits, turning enemies to dusk upon contact. The player is at just as much risk and must spend that time avoiding deadly exposure. Once they obtain the armour however, after feeling the brutality of Hyperion’s light they will feel powerful and rewarded from being able to survive that intense power for prolonged time.

Exercise Two: Voodoo Dungeon

After I generated some puzzles and concepts for the Voodoo dungeon I started piecing things together to make very rough map outlines. I decided I would try something new in designing levels for this semester so thought it might be useful to very quickly block out shapes and sizes in Maya. I drew up some shapes and rooms to get an idea of the scale and overall shape on the dungeon. From there I could rotate them camera up 90 degrees to look straight down on the stage and import the image into Photoshop.

This very quickly gave me something to work from, I could annotate and draw notes on each room of the model and add/subtract areas I saw appropriate. With all the annotations and adjustments made I could start drawing around the model to fill out a 2D map of the 1^st floor of the dungeon. I hadn’t decided exactly what the contents of each room would be at this stage, so as I went along and filled in each room I brainstormed and came up with some different puzzles and obstacles the rooms could have.

From my earlier Reverse Level Design exercise, I knew it was important that my level should be communicated efficiently to anyone who read it. When I reverse designed God of War I soon found out that rooms with trickery geometry and puzzles were very difficult to communicate from a top down perspective. The most obvious solution would be to draw a 3D map of the stage but with the size of this dungeon, a full 3D map would just look too confusing. Instead, I decided to take the rooms I felt might look a bit confusing from a flat down perspective and created small 3D diagrams of their interior, making it (hopefully) alot clearer and easier to understand. 

The diagram on the left is the original version of the room on the right. The perspective seemed a bit confusing so the room diagram was recreated from a clearer perspective on the right.

I knew I had to come up with an overall objective for the dungeon and not just sorely rely on the ‘Get Boss key, beat boss formula’. Taking into consideration both the Carry Ball and the Voodoo theme of the dungeon I created a concept where the player would have to catch three Houngan (Male Witch Doctors) and carry them into cells which they would then have to present in the main hall of the dungeon to make the path to the boss. The boss of the dungeon could be either the leader of the Houngan’s or some kind of entity they worship. The important point in this objective is that the player needs the new special item to complete the dungeon, so it’s not just a secondary pointless object.

The first floor of the Voodoo dungeon is an introduction to the setting/feel of the stage before the real objective is shown to the player. I selected some of the basic Zelda mechanics (hookshot, bombs, bow etc) that the player would have at this stage of the game. The range of equipment the player has for this dungeon would probably place it mid-way into a full Zelda game.

I got the basic shape of the 2D map from the blockmap I created in Maya and then added the little icons to represent items or enemies. I created several unique mechanics for the Voodoo dungeon; the two worth mentioning are the Voodoo Portals and Voodoo Curses.

The Voodoo Portals are large masks on the walls of certain rooms. When awoken their mouths open revealing a green portal inside which the player can step into. The portal will take player to another Voodoo Portal somewhere else in the room. This mechanic is introduced on the first floor very briefly in Room 8.

The Voodoo Curses will be introduced on the second floor. They basically manipulate the environment into a confusing puzzle and the player must locate the mask that controls the curse and shoot it with an arrow. Doing so will return the world to normal. A similar idea takes place early in the dungeon in Room 2, the entrance hall. The large entrance door can only be opened by shooting the correct masks littered around the hall.

The second and third floors will revolve mainly around catching the Houngan’s which will open the pathway to the boss and the end of the dungeon. Whilst revising or populating some of the rooms I made sure that all of the equipment the player has is used regularly to make sure the dungeon has variety and surprise.