Adventure
May-June 2021
Bryan Huke, Jarrett Workman, Christopher Campbell, Luis Chavez, Shelby Wilson
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |
Overview
Adventure was my first large scale school project. Adventure is a third person adventure game similar to games such as the Uncharted series. The main focus of the project was to practice level design and teamwork skills. Over the course of the project, we went from having a basic block-out of a section, to a complete level with all the sections strung together seamlessly.
Block-out Phase
The first step to the project was creating the level with very little detail. Due to important family matters, I was forced to complete what was designed to be a week long process in less than one day. While giving me practice in blocking out a level very fast, this caused some major level design issues that had to be addressed later in the project.
The biggest thing I learned was how effective designing a level this way can be. Being able to turn ideas into reality quickly is invaluable when said ideas could end up needing to be completely cut from the project.
Team Formation
As we formed a team, we were tasked with combining our 5 levels into one long level with transitions between the different designers. With just a couple transition ideas (a zipline and a boat), we brainstormed every level order that made sense.
The sketch below was made by Christopher Campbell when we were still determining the order of levels. Although the order shown is not identical to what we decided, you can see the transition ideas in place.
Asset Implementation
The final stage of the project was to bring the block-out to life with assets. While the process was tricky to get the hang of and very tedious, it was rewarding to see my level idea slowly turn into reality.
Ending evolution
My level's original ending made no sense in terms of a team. This section got completely scraped, redesigned, and implemented over a short time frame. Despite the challenges, I'm very happy with how it turned out
Challenges/Restrictions
Time:
Due to a vacation, during the blackout phase I was forced to make the level in less than a full day. Luckily the design had already been done, I just needed to rebuild it from scratch to fix issues and change sections. Building an entire level block-out in just a few hours was tough, but it taught me how to work efficiently. This is especially important for early prototypes that might get scrapped.
Game Framework:
For this project, we were given a framework of a game that included basic movement. Since the character was so limited, it was difficult to design an interesting level without adding new mechanics. Despite that, we managed to make an interesting set of levels with only a handful of small changes to the mechanic.
Combination of levels:
When our group was formed, we had to take our 5 unique levels and combine them together into one long level. Since we didn't even know each other when the levels were first made, it made it difficult to combine certain levels. With the help of a couple mechanics for transitioning, our levels blend together quite well.
Key Takeaways
One of the most important things this project did for me was get me to work with other developers. Of course we were all students, but working in a team and being able to help each other out is extremely important. We rarely worked on the same thing together, but being able to share knowledge and give each other immediate feedback was very useful.
This project started with the class Level Design 1 for a reason. I learned many fundamentals when it came to level design in this process. While I definitely didn't implement those fundamentals perfectly, I did get to see them in action. My level went through a lot of change as I saw what worked well, what didn't work well and I was able to prevent bad habits from forming.