Summer
The project was created when following „Level Design Master Class: All in One Complete Course“.
Game design
Summer is a Third Person, Stealth, Adventure game in 3D. The game is set in the early 21st century in the French countryside during summer holidays. Players can choose between playing as a boy or girl. During the limited time players can explore nature, interesting places, travel to certain locations, do small favors to get money and uncover mysteries. The game includes a main storyline with missions and sometimes linear levels.
As the story progresses the player must earn money from favors and chores. They use the money to buy tickets to feasts, cinema, museum, train, buying food or things. By doing all the activities it opens new dialogue options and gives them interests to talk about. Relationships are part of the game and they are based on mutual interest. The player is also forced to earn money to get to certain places to uncover more of the story and other mysteries. One of the goals, the main one, is to earn respect between kids and in school which will be mainly gained at the end of the main story.
Main mechanics: Exploration / Fighting / Reward system / Story / Stealth / Base building / Customizations / Biking
Simplified game story and progress
The game is set in the French countryside in a big village as the main center with small villages, fields, plantations, small factories, old buildings, ruins, lakes, mountains and rivers. The game starts after the school ends and the kids group meet together and start planning. Players can choose what they will do on a certain day. Activities and stories push time forward. The first point of the story is gathering information about the robbery. This can already include stealth.
Another point of the story and chosen for the level design demo map is when the kids go through forest. The player is attacked by a boar and pushed from a slope. Other kids ran away and did not notice the fall. The player has to go through the area, follow a river, get through a maze and old house to escape this area. This part of the game unlocks the kid’s shelters.
At the end of the game the player unravels the mystery of the missing artefacts and earns the respect of the whole city as they also saved someone’s life.
Level Design
Pre-Production
During the pre-production was developed the idea of a current level and it was moved to production with LDD. In this project the pre-production stage was mostly skipped as there are no major mechanics to be tested. Making lots of concepts and layouts could be considered as pre-production, but the level was done directly from a sketch and tweaked in an engine.
As an engine I choosed Unity as I was already working in this software and I knew how to use ProBuilder. I also have many low poly or stylised assets to create final level art from Unity Asset store.
Production
During a production the level was created based on LDD.
Architecture: The mission is set in deep forest and there are no signs of civilization. Only building is in the last part and it is mostly damaged. I was inspired by these photos below. Biggest part is the forest with rocks, trees, bushes etc.
Cooperation: I worked alone on this project .
Guide: Some parts of area suggest player where to go as they are visible from distance. Next player needs to follow the river. It is very simple guidance. Maze is very linear and player can leave only at one spot. Showing the building in the distance should pull the player towards it and suggest to explore. After leaving area there is a road leading to village.
Composition: Main composition of the level was created during block out of the level.
Art: Assets from Unity store were used for final art.
Narration: Some places suggest a question: What happened here? For example the old house. What happened that this house is abandoned?
Concept
First part of the production is concept of the level. It is easier to start in an engine with simple sketch than with nothing. It is important to not to forget anything and avoid major changes in the future. We can try to implement most of the things into this concept.
I like the bubble diagram as itt gives a good start and I can expand on this idea until the final layout.
Rough model
After the concept I moved to a rough model of the level. With ProBuilder tool in unity it is very simple to make the map inside the engine. The the main mechanics are place into the rough model and I can walk through.
Block out model
All areas are defined with proper metrics. All gameplay mechanics are tested and laid out. The level is tested. After this any major change would be dificult and would probably effect other areas around.
Refine
If something felt wrong, boring, not interesting I recreated that part of the scene and tested again.
Final level
Final level is not polished yet. All the assets are placed, sounds are added to the level, rough cutscenes are add. After this level went through another test. This time the goal was also optimizing the level and making sure the game runs well. Still the main goal of testing is making a level fun and if all tasks were done.
Polish
The level is tested for any visible issues. This part was about finding bugs and if the player cannot leave the area at any place. It is possible to add some small details to create best experience for the player.
Post-Production
After finishing the level and moving to another or after the release any bug and issue may occure.