The theory lecture about designing for others raised a lot of interesting discussion points, the most valuable to me being about following a brief. As I have already been able to see in my GAM140 projects, I tend to get carried away with ideas, which can sometimes stray outside of the bounds of the brief. It is important to frequently check your project against the brief given to you to ensure you are not creating something that ends up outside of a clients desires for the project.

This week’s workshop introduced us to the ‘3D Game Kit Lite’ (Unity Technologies, 2021), the tool we are recommended to use in the production of our annotated level design assignment. After just two hours of experimenting with it, I can see that it will be a powerful tool in the construction of my level. Combined with the use of ProBuilder, it is possible to very quickly mock up a level, with many of the package’s objects such as crystals and doors being able to stand in for potential quest objects and pick-ups, as they have broad functionality.

I took some time outside of the lecture to follow an in-depth tutorial for the package on Unity Learn (Unity, 2020), which reinforced a lot of the knowledge I had gained from the workshop. By the end of the tutorial I was able to use the PolyBrush to create natural craters for acid to sit within, attach moving platforms, doors, and counters to crystals, implement checkpoints, and tinker with enemy AI (fig. 1).

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. The test area I used to experiment in and follow along with a tutorial for the 3D Game Kit Lite.

Building on from my proposal within the worldbuilding lecture we had last week, I have sketched up a potential level that fits within the world (fig. 2), as well as fleshing out the quest that it sits within (fig. 3).

(Above, top) Figure 2: Picture. The initial sketch for my level design done on paper. (Above, bottom) Figure 3: Screenshot of a word document. The plan for my level and the quest it features in.

The quest involves clearing out an abandoned outpost and placing a quest item in a Spirit Tree at the end of the level to either kill or catalyse the surrounding plant life, dependant on the player’s alignment. The player must stealth their way through this area to avoid being killed by patrolling drones.

The overall shape of the level is circular in its topology, taking great inspiration from Skyrim (2011) dungeons and Dark Souls (2011) areas. This was a conscious decision, as I feel it reinforces the feeling of having actually ‘cleared’ the area that you are moving through, something that may not have been as prevalent if the level had taken on a more linear layout. When sketching out the different spaces that the player moves through, I tried to adhere closely to what was discussed in a Gamasutra article about designing levels around basic human instincts (Totten, 2011). I want the player to be typically alternating between narrow and prospect spaces, with refuge being found in cover and hiding spaces. This will be done to create tension and anticipation in the narrow corridors, before a feeling of awe and potential at the larger areas they will be met with.

Within the Fungus project, I have finished up the dialogue for another character, Memory. The topology for this is still braided but has many branching points, making a lot of the dialogue missable (fig. 4). Having reduced the scope of the game, this now means that I have just one more character to write for, so hopefully I will be able to finish up all of the dialogue next week.

(Above) Figure 4: Screenshot. The topology for Memory’s dialogue.

I have also made some small visual tweaks and quality-of-life fixes. Initially, the transitions between dialogue and menus were quite jarring, as it would abruptly jump from the character portraits to a blank screen which would often break immersion. To negate this, I added some brief pauses of 0.5 seconds between the say dialogues and menus. Although a very simple fix, it goes lengths to make the gameplay smoother. After this, I decided that I would like to give the player some more visual feedback regarding the effect that their decisions have on the state of the game, particularly the ‘baggage’ stats. To achieve this I used the ‘lean tween’ command, to briefly expand and retract the box whenever a stat increases or decreases, alerting the player and drawing their eye to the corner of the screen. I think that this does a much better job at giving the player feedback than what the game did previously.

The Soul Slug encounters have been moved from a prototype stage, and are now fully implemented into the navigational sections. They work as a semi-random event (semi-random because they are actually hand-placed) that the player can stumble upon. When the player comes across one of these the flowchart briefly diverts to another section (fig. 5) that contains the interaction, where they can choose if they want to alter their statistics, before being taken back to the main portion, containing the navigation.

(Above) Figure 5: Screenshot. A portion of the navigation flowcharts holding a Soul Slug interaction.

References:

Dark Souls. 2011. FromSoftware.

Skyrim. 2011. Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks.

TOTTEN, Christopher. 2011. ‘Designing Better Levels through Human Survival Instincts’. Gamasutra [online]. Available at: www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134779/designing_better_levels_through_.php [accessed 20 March 2021].

UNITY. 2020. ‘3D Game Kit Lite.’ Unity Learn [online]. Available at: https://learn.unity.com/project/3d-game-kit-lite [accessed 18 March 2021].

Unity Technologies. 2021. ’3D Game Kit Lite.’ Unity Asset Store [online]. Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/tutorials/3d-game-kit-lite-135162#version-current [accessed 16 March 2021].