World Building and Mechanics (3rd August)

This week has been critical to the world building of my game. As I have started to add detail to my levels and it’s got me thinking about the story that I want to tell the player with my environments and what I want the players perception of the world to be e.g. the images below shows the first level and the interiors of the main antagonist’s house. It got me thinking about what I wanted the house to represent and also to consider what I could create with the asset packs that I had available to me. Fortunately there were a couple of free packs available on the UE4 for me to create the feel I wanted.

Down stairs dining room

Upstairs room

Main Antagonist’s room

With this environment I wanted to create the feeling that this house was designed so that if the police or anyone was to search the house that the baddies could quickly hide any suspicious or illegal items in the house. I wanted to give that suspicious feeling that this didn’t look like a weapons dealers house at all, but as you searched the house it gets more suspicious like in image 2 the meeting area which looks like something of a mafia movie. I also knew that this was a great time to bring out some of the characteristics of the main antagonist, for instance in image 3 (main antagonist’s room) you can see that he’s quite strategic and calculated, but there’s also elements of personality, like the painting canvas by the bed, humanising the character.

While I was doing this I was thinking about who was living there and what the purpose of the house was. The house is going to be part time accommodation for whenever the main antagonist was staying in that area. I also wanted there to be additional rooms where his bodyguards/goons would stay. I wanted it to feel that this is where the goons would live and in the future I am going to be adding more detail, like spilt over beer and guns just lying around the house giving the impression that they are a bit careless.

Goons room

Additionally I had to think practically about the house, if people were living here they needed to be a bathroom and a kitchen. As you can see in the image below I was also thinking of creating creative ways of including these, yet to still include the gameplay elements of the game e.g. instead of a traditional bathroom I created a wet room, this enabled me to have cover system for the enemy inside.

Mechanically:

I have also been looking into ways to make the environment more interactable, for instance with some of the doors in the house I have been messing around with mechanics like physics constraints on the doors, which will make the doors swing open when the player nudges into them.

Although these types of mechanics are cool to look at, if they don’t work practically then there’s no point adding into the game. In this case the doors will glitch when the player continuous to push them into the walls, so alternatively I have added a system where the player presses a button to open the door when they are close. This is a lot smoother of a transition but there are still limitations e.g. with this method the door can push the player back. These types of mechanics will be something that I’ll have to be selective on where I place them as to not hinder the player experience.

Overall I have really enjoyed this weeks work especially fleshing out the world that my players will be a part of. I am currently working on key features of the game so have only managed to get the first level done with a first pass at detail. In the future I hope to be adding more detail into this level just to add that extra level of immersion to the game. This being said I only have a couple of weeks until the deadline for this project (submission date 20th) so I am going to have to be really strategic with how I use this time. This means unfortunately I may not have the time to get the level of detail in that I want in the game as I want to prioritise getting the main elements of the game done first and them making sure that the detail is consistent throughout the game.

#Gam705MajorProject