Unreal tournament
First person shooter deathmatch level
When creating a gym I was testing out how far platforms needs to be apart to be able to make a jump (minimum jump distance, ideal jump distance, maximum jump distance). I was specifically finding out which jump distance felt the best while sprinting around because Unreal tournament is a high pace game.
In Sketchup I created a version of the level based on research on official unreal tournament levels. I tried to use the same variety of combat spaces and in this images I did a rough guess of what would be the areas with the most conflict
The final sketchup file I used a reference vs the in engine version (image below)
During playtests it became clear there was too little verticality and that traversing was dull. I added more layers and used breadcrumbing to guide players onto the highground.
Selection of feedback and the changes I made:
Bad visibility, very dark shadows
→Changed sun position, made shadows lighter added more (coloured) lighting everywhere
There is no real place to use the sniper and jumpboots properly
→Added high ground routes everywhere, made more and better spots for the sniper, added cover and health.
There is no vertical flow, some hallways have too little exits
Added lifts and jump pads in rooms with a lot of verticality. Added better cover in a long corridor and added another entrance to →some combat areas. After this iteration there were a lot more interesting confrontations within the level.
Health is unbalanced, there is way too much on the higher paths
→Redistributed health properly, giving advantageous shooting positions less health packs for example.
Players tried to get dash from a railing because it seemed doable but it actually isn't
→Adjust height of starting point to so that move is possible. Also checked other parts of the level where the geometry might give the indication that a certain move can be performed, and either removed or tweaked the geometry accordingly.
Some advanced routes only work if you execute them in a very specific order
→Tweaked distances and heights to make the advanced routes more accessible in a multitude of situations.
Players spawning in the armor room always get immediately thrown into fights, while having no weapons to defend themselves
→Improved spawn point location and added a gun pickup to be able to fight back or flee depending on the situation.
Bad visibility, very dark shadows
→Changed sun position, made shadows lighter added more (coloured) lighting everywhere
There is no real place to use the sniper and jumpboots properly
→Added high ground routes everywhere, made more and better spots for the sniper, added cover and health.
There is no vertical flow, some hallways have too little exits
Added lifts and jump pads in rooms with a lot of verticality. Added better cover in a long corridor and added another entrance to →some combat areas. After this iteration there were a lot more interesting confrontations within the level.
Health is unbalanced, there is way too much on the higher paths
→Redistributed health properly, giving advantageous shooting positions less health packs for example.
Players tried to get dash from a railing because it seemed doable but it actually isn't
→Adjust height of starting point to so that move is possible. Also checked other parts of the level where the geometry might give the indication that a certain move can be performed, and either removed or tweaked the geometry accordingly.
Some advanced routes only work if you execute them in a very specific order
→Tweaked distances and heights to make the advanced routes more accessible in a multitude of situations.
Players spawning in the armor room always get immediately thrown into fights, while having no weapons to defend themselves
→Improved spawn point location and added a gun pickup to be able to fight back or flee depending on the situation.
Tiles apart puzzle design
On the Tiles Apart page on my portfolio you can read more about my achievements and challenges with puzzle design in Tiles Apart.
An example of the amount of iteration I would go through to get a good puzzle. Because there is always a chance that a puzzle is not solvable you have try out each version. Every puzzle that was solvable would be documented
An example of a puzzle I made and digitized
Part of the digital puzzle library we created
Puzzle library where all puzzles were categorized. This way we could easily sort puzzles and get a feel for what each level's place was in the game as a whole
So for Tiles Apart level design was less about individual level iterations and much more about finding as many solvable levels and then trying to fit them in in a way that keeps the player into a nice flow (not too challenging and not too easy) while learning them new mechanics.
Disconnect level and puzzle design
I started out with defining what the player is supposed to know at the end of this section. Because the terrain was shaped around the puzzles that were initially here I had a space constraint, needing to work with what we already had.
I sketched out the puzzles (unfortunately I lost those pictures on a laptop that died) and tried to make them work on paper. After getting to something that used the mechanics we wanted to player to understand I made it in engine.
In the little time I had (I was taking over some work from a designer who became ill) I did a few iterations to make the solution feel more natural and logical.
I sketched out the puzzles (unfortunately I lost those pictures on a laptop that died) and tried to make them work on paper. After getting to something that used the mechanics we wanted to player to understand I made it in engine.
In the little time I had (I was taking over some work from a designer who became ill) I did a few iterations to make the solution feel more natural and logical.
I added a window so players can see the situation beyond the door. This was a very necessary addition because it allowed players to look forward at what the situation is beyond the door (important for solving the puzzle)
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In the left image you can see the green plug has to go through the door. This felt counter-intuitive to players because you have to close the door behind you. To make this feel more natural I added a hole at the spot marked in purple. This increased the solve rate of the puzzle a lot because suddenly players see that design wise it makes sense.
