FRANK THALIATH
LEVEL DESIGNER
LAST RESORT
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Genre:
First-Person
Action Adventure
Platform:
PC/Console
Level Editor:
Dying Light Developer Tools
Duration:
32 days
Team Size:
Last Resort is a custom level for the game Dying Light. The level is in search for the partner of Nathalie, a friend of Crane(player) who is the main character.
A brief narrative to this mission is that Crane has been called to a town by Nathalie who lost her partner in the search of antazins in a lab in the sewers. The town is swarming with zombies and it is up to Crane to help Nathalie find her partner deep in the sewers.
Solo
LEVEL FLOW
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
START
QUEST GIVER
PUZZLE
TRAVERSAL/COMBAT
PLATFORMING
MINI-BOSS FIGHT
QUEST ITEM COLLECTED
CHASE SEQUENCE
INTENSITY CHART
GAMEPLAY
TRAVERSAL/PLATFORMING
The player will be moving around the level by parkouring and platforming to reach objectives. The player can do advanced parkouring to get into specific places for rewards.
PUZZLE
The player will have to solve certain puzzles like Fixing Cables and Interacting with Levers or Buttons to progress through the blockers.
The Fixing Cable puzzle increases in difficulty, as the first section is in an Enclosed Space where the player is safe.
The 2nd section of the Puzzle is in an Open Space where zombies are present and the player has to use the firecrackers to distract zombies from the player getting killed.
MINI-BOSS FIGHT
As the player progresses through the mission, the player will face a challenging boss to overcome. The player can use the Combat Space to move around and counter the Boss attacks.
CHASE SEQUENCE
The player will have to escape the deepest sewers from the most aggressive Volatiles in the game. They will have to use the Parkouring and Platforming to maneuver the Volatiles from getting to them.
LEVEL DESIGN TECHNIQUES
FRAMING THE OBJECTIVE
The objectives are shown importance by framing them using the environments to the player. This helps in guiding the player to move around the world.
LIGHTING
Usage of different lights helps in guiding and setting the mood of the scene. I have used Yellow lights mainly to guide the player through the level. I have also used Red lights to portray danger and flickering lights to guide the player.
TEASING REWARDS
Rewards are teased to the player to encourage exploration.
ENVIRONMENT STORYTELLING
Props are placed in a such way that the world tells a story to the player when they explore. These micro story telling moments give more life to the world.
LEVEL DESIGN PROCESS
REFERENCES
Gathering references is one of the first steps I take to get inspiration for Locations where the gameplay could take place. Sometimes might also help in getting new ideas for the level I had planned.
ROUGH LAYOUT
I always like to do a quick layout using pen and paper to brainstorm layout ideas. I don't spend a lot of time on this step.
EDITOR
Once everything is planned out, I jump into editor to see if the planned level is possible by doing a quick blockout and then playtesting as soon as possible to avoid any issues later on.
SCRIPTING
Before getting into creating the level in detail in the editor, I scripted the whole quest to see what was possible in the editor and whether it could support the quest I wanted to create.
Scripting was initially a bit challenging since there were not a lot of tutorials available but I still managed to script everything from Puzzles, Chase Sequence, Dialogs, Checkpoints, Quest Objective, etc.
A Code Snippet of the Initial part of the quest mainly focusing on Initialization and some puzzle setup.
A Code Snippet of the Final Chase Sequence
THOUGHTS ON THE PROJECT
-Initially, I had not planned to have a Chase Sequence at the end of the level but pivoting from my initial idea of having a Big Boss Fight to a Chase Sequence inspired from the Original game was a good idea.
- I feel like I could have done more set dressing in the world to sell the world to the player.
- I think the lighting could have gotten a bit more polished throughout the level.
Overall I am quite happy with this project and seeing the reviews of people in the steam workshop is a good feeling for me.
WALKTHROUGH
GALLERY
