Level Designing in Unreal

A screen shot from my prototype

Throughout this project I have been thinking about what scene I have wanted to create, the first thing I had to do though was to see which assets would be available to me for free. I was fortunate enough to find two free asset packs that fitted the description of the game that I wanted to make One was an AdvancedVillage [1] pack and the other MedievalDungeon [2] pack, which can both be found on the Unreal Engine 4 Marketplace [3]. With both of these assets I could create the game I wanted. I knew I wanted to tell a story of a friend who has gone missing and it’s up to you to find out where he went. I wanted to spice up the story, so thought it would be an interesting twist to have it so that your friend had been kidnapped and was in a dungeon (due to having the amazing looking MedievalDungeon pack ). So that is how I came to my story.

Due to the fact I was learning a new engine I didn’t want to add in Ai for the player to talk to so instead had it so that you were following notes that your friend and the kidnapper had left behind, this way I could effectively continue the story without needing NPCs. All aspects that I have just mentioned were all things I needed to consider when making this map, how could I successfully create an interesting game/story with the player following notes, and the answer to that was to create an interesting environment/atmosphere. I then proceeded to create the map thinking of ways to make the map get more sinister as the game progressed so I designed the map so that the player would start off in the peaceful village and make his way into the woods, as soon as the player finds out that it has been the kidnapper writing the notes not his friend the music will turn from a peacefully guitar track to a sinister violin track (all found from freesounds [4] ), along with this the map also takes a sinister turn, as soon as you find out that your friend was kidnapped you’re lead to a creepy locked door then proceed to follow a path of dead fish to find the key, and once the door is unlocked this leads you into a haunting dungeon where you find your friend who is dead and the are told that you are the next victim and with that the door slams behind you, a sinister laugh is heard and the screen goes to black. With this I not only was telling the story through the narrative itself but also with the music and change of environment, enabling me to create the atmosphere that I wanted to. This project alone has already taught me loads about level designing and creating atmosphere to make it so that I’m really thinking from the players prospective and not just making a pretty map, thinking about elements like: Will the player know where to go, is the story interesting enough to maintain the players attention, does the game create the right atmosphere/mood that I wanted to create for the player. The game really forced to answer these questions, the main way to do this was to constantly test and test again, the maps that I was designing.

[1] Advanced Asset Packs, 2015, Advanced Village Pack, Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/advanced-village-pack, Accessed on: Nov 2020

[2] Infuse Studio, 2019, Medieval Dungeon, Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/a5b6a73fea5340bda9b8ac33d877c9e2, Accessed on: Nov 2020.

[3] Epic Games, 2014, Unreal Engine 4 Marketplace, Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/, Accessed on : Nov 2020

[4] Bram de Jong, 2005, Freesound, Available at: https://freesound.org/, Accessed on: Nov 2020

#Local