Level Designer

Project STEALTH is an exercise I wanted to do to try a different design pipeline than I am used to. The goal was to be more organized as a Level Designer and follow steps to build a strong and solid foundation before starting the actual production of the level.

Gameplan

Step 1: Foundation

Build a solid foundation for the level by determining the objectives, the elements, and the overall layout of the map.

Step 2: In-Engine

Build the first pass of the level in Unreal Engine using simple meshes.

Step 3: Reiterate

Test the level design and reiterate from players' feedbacks.

Step 4 - Make a playable level

Create a playable level.

Step 1: Foundation

- Determine what kind of level I want to make; what are the objectives, the difficulty and the genre.

- Make a 2 part level inspired by Stealth games like Deus Ex and Splinter Cell.

First part: introduce the player to the stealth mechanics with the objective of simply leaving the area.

Second part: a more challenging area with a lot more enemies doing different tasks and with the objective of freeing a hostage and leaving the area with him.

Level Design - Top view layout

In my top-view design, I placed the enemies, their field of view and even their walking/rotating paths. The guards without a walking path are stationary; doing different types of tasks (looking through bins, talking, etc).

The objective at first for the second room was about freeing a hostage and leaving with him. It felt underwhelming, so I added two more objectives.

1. The player needs to get the key for the room where the VIP is from one of the guards (yellow and red circle).

2. The player needs to get the car keys from one specific guard (green and red circle).

3. The player needs to get the VIP, go to the car in the back of the building (green) and leave with him.

Step 2: In-Engine

First Pass

I made the first pass of the level design based on the top view layout above. I was satisfied with this design, I found that it worked good for the stealth genre.

One thing I would like to try for the second pass would be to create multiple paths leading to the end of the level. Those paths would be all available to the player from the start.

Step 3: Reiterate

I wanted to make a second pass of the level design and try something new:

Create a few different paths for the player to reach the objectives

I reiterated the 2nd part of the level. I find that the first part was perfect for what I intended to do with it. My goal for the first part was to teach the player some game mechanics and for that reason, it couldn't be too difficult or to demanding.

I created 2 extra paths the player can take:

Path A: Would make the player skip all the enemies except one. He would then end up directly on top of the main room where the VIP is being held. I also changed one part of the roof for that room to make it an opened skylight.

Path B: Normal path where the player would stay on the main ground and could take any direction he wants, there is a lot of possibilities there depending on the player's play style.

Path C: would first lead up to a retractable ladder that the player could shoot the lock (stealthy or not) to make the first half touch the ground. It would lead up to a roof where he could just walk on pipes to end up on top of the room where the VIP is.

I also created another door for the player to leave from with the VIP. That way, the player wouldn't need to take down the guard with the key for the yellow door, he could simply take down the guard holding the VIP and he would have the key for the car + the green door.

Step 4 - Make a playable level

- Designed and coded simple AI behaviour (patrolling and detecting the player) in Unreal for testing.

- Designed a level in the Far Cry Editor with assets and AI behavior prepared.