Level Design Blog

We decided to do only one round for our game demo as opposed to 2. So I combined elements from both of these Round 1 and 2 blocked out maps into the final level.  Fully set dressed RPP level: Decided to give player freedom to move around the level even when not on the main road. So I left the assets in their respected areas, and even added more with hidden reward objects littered throughout them to encourage exploration. 'Fake houses' (houses without candy) were shown by turning off the lights in the houses as opposed to having different colors. The name of the game is Don't take my Candy.

  Concept and Planning:  Blocked out RPP level in Unity. Development Process:  Added some lighting and assets to the scene. Challenges and Solutions:  Decided to use the Tile Palette feature in Unity to more easily map out Assets. Realized most of the map won't be seen by the player since the camera is zoomed closer to the player, so I will rearrange the assets to be in locations to be seen more by the player.

9-16-24 Update  Houdini Island we've been working on in class: Moved into Unreal without color:

Affordance - a way to communicate with objects what the player can interact with and where to go Denying Affordance - Opposite use of affordance to show players where NOT to go - heavily visual Conveyance -  Visual Language - Shape - Shape consistency is important and communicate affordance. Some shapes psychologically affect the player as threatening(Square/spikes) or nonthreatening(circular/round) Visual Language - Color - Also communicates affordance, huge contrast can communicate this. Yellow paint meme "why is there yellow paint everywhere?" actually is very useful/necessary Landmarks (aka weenies) - Orients the player. Distant object seen from many vantage points in the level. A goal to work toward. Tip: Build this first, then work backwards Opening Attract - Caves, doors, archways, openings. Entrances should have good contrast in color Gates & Valves - Valves prevent backtracking, Gates prevent forward progress. Ex: locking you into a combat zone until the combat t...

Concept and Planning:  Concept for RPP game. Working on 2D top-down view of pixel game where you start at home and try to collect as much candy as you can while avoiding capture from your parents and making it back home before they do. Development Process: Worked in Unity in the 2D model editor version. Using multiple types of 2D objects(Sprites) to create the concept image below. Used the layer function to properly display which items should appear in the front. Challenges and Solutions: Have not finished the final product yet, but discovered the circular shape I initially had in my head for the map would be difficult to implement with the design choices of my RPP team. So we have decided to go more for a square shaped map, similar to the drawn one above, with different routes and alleyways bringing the versatility to the map.

Submission #1 Concept and Planning: Worked on class blockmesh workshops of the cruiseship and the Lincoln memorial. Used reference images from google, and used unreal’s default human sized character to get a good sense of scale. Development Process: Used UE5, utilizing a combination of primitive geometric shapes and brush editing shapes to form the basic outlines of the sections in the different structures. Challenges and Solutions: Found some shapes in the reference photos that weren’t quite in the same kind of form as the default primitive shapes in Unreal, so I combined/distorted some of the default primitives to make the correct shapes I was attempting to create.