On Level Design
As students we are novice level designers at best. Colloaborating we tackled the task as best we saw fit. Because our game takes place in Washington Heights, we felt that was the best place to start. Using Google Maps and Photoshop we overlaid a street map with a satellite image and then got to blocking out the level.
Washington Heights
Not entirely sure what makes a level fun, we went with what we know as gamers. We knew that we wanted to keep the player off the main streets and keep them in the alleys as much as possible. So our first order of business was to cut of a lot of the intersections, thus forcing them down the alleys.
The Initial Blocking out of our level
The Next Step was to place key points of interest, and the mini bosses. We ended up moving some of the barricades, because we wanted to give the player the percieved notion of choice, but still funnel them through specific pathways. Using misleading signs and rewarding exploration, the level will feel much more open than it actually is.
Key Objects for the players progression
Once we had the Key objects and paths fully defined, it was time to add the enemies and weapon pickups. Still a rough draft, this was the hardest part of the concepting. We are trying to keep the enemies to a minimum but still keep the difficulty up, and the tensions high, this is going to take iteration and testing.
Enemies and Pickups
All in all, this was a great learning experience. Having never tried to design a level on this scale we had alot of fun being creative and problem solving things that we hadn’t thought about. Bulding this level concept was a lot of work, thankfully this will be one and only level of Dreams No More.
Welcome To Dreams No More
What a week and a half it’s been. Coming up with two game designs and pitches, fleshing them out while simultaneously meshing together developers and artists was a challenge. However after some alcohol and epic Muchkin, team cohesion was at an all time high, and things were looking good. Working all weekend we gave our pitches tuesday morning and knocked them out of the park. After some dileberation the external producers chose Dreams No More.
Dreams No More is a survival horror game centering around a nurse named Riley. Riley Wakes up in a destoryed Manhattan and must fight and sneak her way past the corrupt minnions of the great old one Cthulhu. Sneaking across the city she will uncover the secret of his awakening as she tries to make it to safetly; across the George Washington Bridge.
