Advanced Mission Design

Project Gallery

Project Overview

This project was created in 12 weeks, focusing on narrative and level design. Advanced Mission Design was a module I completed as part of my Masters in Games Design at Teesside University. It was developed with an existing game build, making use of mechanics and systems to create a three-part first-person shooter campaign. The team size was made up of three, I contributed to the overall narrative and developed the third level of the campaign.

Project Details

- Made in Unreal Engine 5.2.
- 12 weeks development.
- Medium-sized level.

- Github used for version control.
- Team of three designers.
- Sprint Planning & Retrospective documented on Miro.

- Linear Level

Level Design

References:

During the initial brainstorming sessions references allowed me and the other team members to rule out what we wanted in our game world and shape our creative vision.

After my level setting was finalised as the outskirts of "Psyberdelphia", a dystopian cyberpunk city rife with crime and gangs, I gathered furthered references linking to key sections in my level. This helped me gain inspiration for the layout and composition of my level.

Top Down Sketches

Iteration 1 & 2:

Final Top Down

During the development of the first top down sketch, I focused on a basic layout which highlights the key locations, start, and end point. During the development of the second iteration, I focused on making the level more engaging for the player adding verticality, loot, and cover from enemies.

During the development of the final iteration, I focused on maintaining the vision I had built up and applying level design theory to it. I imagined this flashing club in the distance with various vistas, leading lines, and verticality leading to it. I felt satisfied with this design as it provides player choice and embodies various level design techniques.

Level Flow

1/3

Developing a level flow allowed me to space out dialogue, combat, and exploration in an organised manner. It also helped bridge communication with other team members to ensure we all stayed on the same page, Miro was particularly useful for documenting this.

Dialogue

Discussing dialogue as a team was extremely useful, it ensured consistency between the levels. Below is an example of how I documented and shared the dialogue of my level to the other team members, we all took this approach as it maintained good readability.

Design Choices

Vistas

From the very first line of sight vistas are used to help orientate the player in the intended direction. When greyboxing, I made an attempt to create curves in the architecture, pointing to the club in the distance. The player loses sight of the club landmark in parts of the level but always ends up being funnelled towards it through following the carefully planned layout and architecture.

Environmental Storytelling

To emphasise the level being overrun with gangs, drugs, and crime I employed environmental story telling. Throughout the level the player can encounter shells of what once were humans who have been captured by "venom", a high addictive drug.

I linked this section of the level to a past memory of the protagonist in order to invoke emotions in the player. In an attempt to build on player motivations and immersion. This section is heavily over run with victims of "venom", coupled with untidy furniture intended to make the player question how it got like this.

Leading Lines

When designing the level embodying composition techniques, such as leading lines, was important in assisting with player navigation. The leading lines are intended to assist the player to the end goal in various sections of the level without breadcrumbing.

Exploration

When designing the level I added some branching pathways leading to dead ends. These pathways are external from the critical path and only intended for explorers to find. If a player was to explore one of these hidden areas, rare loot can be found.

Documentation

If you would like to find out more about the project as a whole feel free to browse through our production document. You can manually change the slides by left clicking the display and using the arrow keys.

Playtest Diary

Gameplay Walkthrough

Full Campaign Walkthrough

Mission 1 - Martyna Pawel
Mission 2 - Kacper Szwacki
Mission 3 - Daniel Slater (Me)