Highlights
Quest for Valor
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Roles: Solo Project
Quest for Valor was a six-part level design assignment at Vancouver Film School that spanned over three months. During this time we were tasked with using some premade assets to create a fantasy RPG level within a set framework.
Full Playthrough
Sublevel 1: Platforming
After planning the level and generating documentation, we were tasked with creating a platforming section. Since our character had fairly limited movement, I looked for inspiration from other RPGs where platforming was not a main mechanic but had short platforming sections. This led me to Blighttown in Dark Souls.
The overall darkness of this section allowed me to make the critical path very clear since the player could always follow the torch light. Another advantage of this was that it allowed me to hide small reward moments such as friendly NPCs and pickups just out sight.
Sublevel 2: Platforming
For my second platforming section, I designed a simple puzzle with three different types of rocks:
One that never broke
One that broke after a short delay
One that broke as soon as you touched it
In order to teach these mechanics to the player, I first had them enter a cave with the unbreaking rocks under their feet. As they ran forward I provided an easy series of jumps that appeared to lead them to the other side of the cave. However, once they tried to cross they would realize that as soon as they landed on that colour of rock it would break under them. After a short fall, the player would find themselves standing on the unbreakable rocks again with another platforming section leading them to a pickup. This would incentivize the player to try to jump across the new rocks instead of just dropping down to the next section; if they were able to jump to the other side before the rocks broke, they would receive a small reward and even if they didn’t, they would know that this new colour of rock could only be stood on for a short time.
The reason I designed this section in this way was because of how much control it gave me over pacing. Since the rocks would break if the player slowed down, I could facilitate movement through the section. The rocks that the player could not jump on could be used to break up the line of sight, preventing the player from planning too far ahead and forcing them to think on their feet.
Sublevel 3: World Building
I decided to start this section with a small prison, as each cell could act as a piece of visual storytelling. I also placed one living NPC in a cell who would talk about the end boss. The goal of this section was to allow the player to relax and explore before moving forward.
Later on in the sublevel I placed a door that could only be unlocked if the player took an optional path in the first sublevel and picked up a key. I made sure that I placed this door off to the side so that players who missed the key would just think the door was set dressing. Behind the door, I scripted a simple event that changed the player's weapon.
Lastly, I used this downbeat to tutorialize a key mechanic in the following section by placing a pushable block directly in the player's path and forcing them to interact with it. Once the player interacted with it, it would create a small bridge over top of a pool of lava.
Sublevel 4: Puzzle Section
One of the sublevels we were tasked with making was a puzzle section. I decided to create a trap-infested maze.
For each puzzle I followed these steps:
Present the player with a problem
Give the player choices
Let the player have a moment of insight
Have that moment of insight lead to a solution
A simple example of this would be the first puzzle the player encounters:
The player enters a maze and after the first turn, an arrow launcher firing on a loop blocks their path (problem)
The player is presented with different options and gameplay ingredients such as three paths that lead them into the arrows, a pushable block similar to the one found in the previous section of the level, and a pressure plate down one of the paths (choices)
The player realized that the pushable block can be placed on the pressure plate (insight)
The player then pushes the pushable block onto the pressure plate to stop the arrow launcher (solution)
Although this is a very simple puzzle, I really liked this formula as all puzzles can be boiled down to these steps.
Sublevel 5: Boss fight
For the final sublevel we needed to design a boss fight. We were given a basic AI that would walk towards the player and attack, and we needed to design and blueprint all other mechanics.
When I was designing this encounter I decided to design it entirely around managing space. I had the boss spawn persistent pools onto the player’s location every few seconds that damaged the player every quarter second that they stood in them. This created a dps check as the player had to defeat the boss before the room filled up, raising the intensity of the encounter without increasing the difficulty too much.
Whenever the boss lost 33% of their health they would summon several adds and projectiles that launched from the perimeter of the room. These projectiles damaged the player and the summoned enemies. If the player had misplaced the pools or let too many spawn they would not have enough room to maneuver around the projectiles while kiting the adds through them.
After the boss dropped to 33% of their health, the stage mentioned above would play out again but the boss would also summon a large damaging pool beneath their feet, taking away even more space from the player.
In order to have all of these mechanics, I needed to allow the player to recover from mistakes, so I decided to have the summoned adds drop healing pools when they died. This reinforced the value of space in the boss fight while allowing the player to work with more than one health bar.
