This abandoned prison was made to explore narrative first-person level design. Made as a complement to my thesis game Banana Republic, it explores a potential epilogue when a daring journalist decides to go into an abandonded military prison in search for clues of what really happened in the Courts of Justice.
The video breaks down what I think went well, and what went wrong for this level, the circles and points I refer to throughout the video are represented in the following top-down screenshot of the level layout.
The following are the high-scale plans for the level flow and the layout sketches.
Comparison of original level layout sketches and final level screenshot
2nd - Burned Village
This is a small section of a bigger level made as a group project, Where we were trying to learn how to level design together for a bigger level, while each person would be fully in charge of one section. Something I really want to highlight from this project was all the iterations I made on it. Originally meant to be more open and without clearly defined paths. However due to the narrative nature of the final level idea we had, I quickly pivoted to strongly leading the players a certain way and keeping the other paths only open as valves to return to previous areas if the player wishes to.
On the left are the images from the first level blockmesh, on the right is the second iteration of the blockmesh in the same area.
I also want to highlight the added lava flow at the end of the level. Lava was a big part of the next 3 sections of our combined level, and to allign my area better with my teammates we colaboratively found a good spot to place the lava near the entrance of the mines. This ended up working way better for my level, to add more visual indications and decorations on the way to the mines, to hint to the players that this was in fact the correct path.
The windmill shown in the layout was something I also iterated a lot on. It first transitioned into a shrine where the player gets their main quest, given its relationship with magic and a grand quest, a windmill did not seem like the most appropriate area for it. Later on i completely swapped the location of the destroyed village with the shrine, given that players were feeling that the first area looked too peaceful compared to the quest, being given. So the starting image changed to be in the middle of the destroyed village, using the lava to its advantage, and also framing the shrine in the distance, and the great sword in the distance to act as the major point of interest throughout the level.
3rd - Training Warehouse
This training warehouse was made as a homage to the Tutorial level of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I think there are few tutorials that have such a strong connection to the world building and story like this one. So I decided to take the same concept and adapt it to my own game Banana Republic.
Originally the level was going to be bigger, and act as a closed loop so players could go through it and repeat it multiple times. However it made the firing range too small, and created visibility problems of the main goal, and affected the player's mental map of the area. It failed at setting a clear goal for the players. So I iterated on it to make it smaller, and completley linear.
This was made more as an experiment with the intention of what a tutorial for Banana Republic could look like. So I took the main level I built for that game as reference, simplified it, and re-themed it as if it was a fake house built for a training exercise. I took the existing shooting mechanics of Unreal 5.6, added some different sound effects to make it sound more realistic and edited the training dummy blueprint to explode if a enemy (red) is hit or restart the level if a civilian (green) is hit.
If I had more time with this level I would wish to add a timer and a scoring system so players could replay it and get better at it until they beat their own time and score. But as an experiment it even helped me block out the starting tutoruial area of Banana Republic.
Between the layout and the final level I did my best to make each area feel different from the others. As well as adding a surprise towards the end where the player falls through the floor and ends up in a covered parking lot, bringing even more environmental changes to this compact level.
I was also able to include a small overview area to set the players expectations and set a small teaser of what is to come. I also decided to start the level in this overlook area located at the top of the image below in order to better set up the players expectations and goals. Through playtests I discovered that by starting players in an enclosed shooting range players were focusing more in the shooting than in the level that was beyond the glass and the doors. If I had more time with this level I would wish to add a timer and a scoring system so players could replay it and get better at it until they beat their own time and score. But as an experiment it even helped me block out the starting tutoruial area of Banana Republic.
