Final Changes to the environment (14th August)

After getting the narrative elements of the game finished it was time to move onto finishing the detail for my game. As I had already done my first pass at detail for my first level it was important to start adding in detail for my 2nd and 3rd levels.

2nd level:

The main task that I first wanted to implement was the room that the player would find all the notes and images in.This is the room where the people getting smuggled would be, so obviously these people are going to have basic supplies like somewhere to sleep. But as this was an area that was going to show how these people were being treated kindly, I wanted to show this in the room, so I added elements like having food and drinks and places to eat alongside having decent beds to sleep on. All these elements were used to change the players perspective of what’s happening the game, showcasing that Phoenix group in the game don’t sell people into slavery and this is shown by the comforts that they provide these civilians.

Also in the room I wanted to showcase that the group had received loads of letters from the people they helped (as shown in image above).One of the conscious design decisions I made was to make the letters that were interactable to stand out as much as possible, so this is why they’re relatively big in comparison with all the other notes left around.

Now moving on to the rest of the level, the first thing I wanted to sort out was the minecarts in the level, these where not only going to act as sources of light by more importantly act as a pathway guide for the player.

As shown by the image above these minecart tracks where really important, as they would guide the players eye as they moved through the level.

With the use of the spline tool, the tracks throughout this level were relatively easy to put together (thanks to how this asset pack was put together). Meaning that I could put the track in the game in a couple of hours. Then came the element of putting the minecarts onto the track. As the positions and number of minecarts was already sorted in the block that I had done this was easy put together.

After finishing with the tracks and carts it was now the time to start adding in the detail in the caves. The purpose of the caves in my world was to smuggle supplies form the antagonist’s house to the fort in the final level, so this means that the caves would be filled with boxes of weapons and supplies and to show scale of production that this group was working with.

3rd Level:

In the third level I really wanted to exaggerate the sheer scale of weapons and supplies that this group are shifting, really telling the player why this group is such a threat.

I also wanted to further reinforce this urgency of this final level, where as soon as you break out of the cave you’ll be notified by the fact that you have 5 minutes to get to the other side of the fort . This in my favourite moment in the game, as you’ll have just come out of an enclosed space (the cave network) into this huge space where there’s a giant battle going on and you’ve just been told that you have to run through this chaos to get to the other side.

After the player has ran through the chaos they’ll be confronted with the final hurdle that they have to confront and even from the image below you can tell that this is your final task and the big ending to the game.

Once inside this final building I just wanted to show that this was the one of the groups headquarters for smuggling supplies and that they were using every inch of the castle to store weapons and use as their production line.

Then to end the game off I wanted a big finale to the game, so instead of walking to the end. I made it so to get to the final boss you’d blow the door down.

Then in the last moments of level the game will continue to reward the player if they’re observant, as if they look around the final room they’ll be confronted with an image revealing the true narrative of the game and offering the player a final choice to make.

With the overall construction of the levels I also kept in mind the emotions that the players should be feeling throughout my levels and the levels of intensity that the player should feel at each stage throughout my game. In my pitch for this game, I stated that I wanted to also keep the level of intensity that these levels provided and the emotion that these games provided at the heart of my game. The image below shows the levels of intensity and emotion that I wanted the players to feel and playing through this game I can say that you feel that rise in tension and emotion as you play through the game.

Overall I am really happy with how the detail looks in the game and how it helps to reinforce the narrative of the game and it’s obvious when playing through the levels that this game is built around environmental story telling.

#Gam705MajorProject