The Ship | Third Person Experience
Summary
A concerned local and his group have been noticing strange activities going on in their home country as a foreign company.
Your goal is to investigate and find out what they’re bringing in the ship containers. You have your theories but you just need to confirm it.
Use stealth to infiltrate and find a way to the ship that brings in the containers.
Breakdown
- 6 weeks half time (4 h/day)
- Unreal Engine 5.6
- Jakub AGLS 1.6
- Assets
- Characters, Animations, Truck from AGLS Jakub 1.6
- Blockout Starter Pack
- Blockout Tools
- Made by me in Blender
Goals
The goal of this level was to create an immersive experience where the world feels alive with scripted events and enemies talking about everyday things. I also wanted to create nice level flow that fit into a three act structure.
Video Walkthrough
Don’t feel like reading? Here is a video summarized version of this page
Process, Iteration & Pivoting
Process
I started with writing down what I wanted for the level. What has happened? How did the player arrive here? What events led the player to visiting this place? Why is the player here?
All of these things were questions I needed answered before I started.
I got recommended “Preproduction Blueprint – How to plan game environments and level designs“ by a fellow Level Designer about which has been the blueprint for my pre-production.
This helps me to get a clearer picture of what it is I want to do and answers questions that needs to be answered.
Blocking out in Engine
The initial idea was that there would be a riot outside of this facility set in a cyberpunk world and the player would infiltrate this warehouse and find a secret entrance that would lead to an underground facility. This would later on happen to be changed.
After playing through this level I felt I wasn’t really feeling the setting at all. I felt like I was trying to do too many things and my scope was too high. It sounded so much better in pre production than it did in practice so I did the only logical thing I could. Pivot.
Pivoting
This led me back to the drawing board where I made use of an exercise we had during our third game project.
In short we were tasked with coming up with a world, gameplay and role.
Then they told us to change the world but keep the gameplay and role.
So for me I changed the world, kept the gameplay and slightly adjusted the role.
This made so that I can still have the gameplay I want and have a similar enough role to my character so I don’t have to come up with many new things and build of the initial idea.
With the world changed I can create a better experience while keeping the same gameplay and role as intended from the beginning.
Level Overview
Act 1
Giving context
The start of the level will serve as a place for the player to talk with NPCs and get context on what’s going on. The players companions will talk about everyday things and you will overhear what the locals think about the base.
Funnel before Reveal
The opening shot was pretty important to me since I wanted to have a nice reveal when you get revealed to your objectives. The goal was to a clear goal for the player and create an impactful vista.
Framing
While playtesting I looked at the behavior of the players and everyone noticed the ship coming in first, since it’s strengthened by movement and then the building and lastly the lookout. This establishes the short, mid and long term goal for the player.
Player goals
The player is inclined to move to the lookout and see what he has to say. Secondly the players know they have to move through the base before they can reach the ship.
Create a living world
The goal with the lookout was always to draw attention so that the players walked towards him, this would trigger a dialogue and a scripted event where the truck drives out of the underground garage. Players enjoyed this moment. This also serves as a place to scout the area.
Enemy encounter
Here the player will stumble upon two guards arguing over how they hate their current job. This serves as an introduction to the enemies and you will get a snack-kill so that you can progress into the base.
Act 2
Guiding The Player
Throughout the level I am guiding the player with leading lines and obstacles. Obstacles could be things simply blocking you from moving forward while also being used as a way to lead the player into the right direction.
No Man’s Land
Here I wanted to create a No Mans Land where the player is at an disadvantage, making them question if combat is a good idea in this situation. Having an overwhelming enemy patrol forces the player to look for another route.
Engage or Wait?
Here is another enemy encounter, however here I chose to make this encounter optional. The player can either engage or wait the for the guards to sit by the campfire. The player has a lot of advantage in terms of cover compared to the enemy.
The Cages
Here the player will learn that they smuggle humans with the containers. The player will get the information and later down the line the idea is that the locals will launch a rescue mission, but first they need to get to the ship.
Movement
I believe movement is a great tool as it attracts attention. Seeing the gate closing in front of you and a guard going towards a certain direction makes you follow him and see what he is up to. This area also got some iterations thanks to play-testing, where I could identify why players wouldn’t go where I wanted and ending up with this event that solved my problems.
Affordance & Signifiers
Throughout the level I have places that I want to strengthen for the player with affordances and signifiers. This is to show the player that the truck is climbable.
An Ally
When you are on the truck, you will notice the lights on the truck flashing towards the truck you’re on. This is to signal to the player that the person by the truck is waiting for you and he will help you reach the ship.
The Transport
One thing I thought was a problem was that it took a long time to actually make it to the warehouse, so what I wanted to do was to add “locals” that are trading with the people in the base but in reality they are there to help you. This creates a cool sequence where you go deeper in the base and there is a lot of enemies.
Act 3
Initiate Combat or Sneak?
Here the player can chose which path they’re going to take. Some paths are less optimal than others. Engaging in combat can also alert the guards, so the question is if you’d rather sneak or go full guns blazing.
Covers
Although I designed this level as primarily a stealth level, I kept in mind that things can go wrong, therefore I tried to think about some combat scenarios in case they broke out.
Player Agency
This entire section is designed with player agency in mind. The player can go through the highlighted paths and it’s up to the player which one they chose. Some paths are more optimal than others and some will initiate combat and some won’t.
Reaching the Ship
Once you reached the office you’ll be able to sneak through the balcony and reach the truck that signaled you earlier in the level. This will lead to the player reaching the ship and this section of the level will end. The idea is that this will lead up to the ship section of the level.
Design problems and solutions
Too Much Curiosity
During playtests I noticed that players were curious to see what was going on with the NPC leaning over and looking towards the ocean was doing, which resulted in a lot of players going towards said NPC rather than the main path. I added another NPC walking through the gate and closing the door behind himself, blocking the path for the player.
The Ladder Problem
Here I created confusion for players when they entered the base by making them climb this ladder rather than continuing. This completely destroyed the pacing of the level, so I removed it and players naturally moved on the golden path.
Unintentional Combat
A place which was supposed to be a stealth section turned out to be a combat space, not a very good one. The players didn’t try to sneak past but instead engaged in combat with the enemies. Changing the speed of the NPC solved the issue.
Changing the warehouse
This led me to change the layout of the warehouse so that the player couldn’t reach the NPC’s and that they had to go through the window. By blocking the player I am forcing them to push forward.
Scripted Events
Moving objects
I needed to create a script that was as dynamic as possible where I had different objects moving along a spline. I needed this for two things, the trucks driving and the ship. This simple script helped enhance my level and add life to it.
Optimizing the experience
AI is expensive and during playtest I noticed once the AI got added the FPS started dropping drastically which worsened the experience. I solved this by creating a script where I can de-spawn any actor. But primarily it’s been used to de-spawns enemies.
This has been very helpful and has improved the levels performance a lot making the experience a lot smoother.
Full Playthrough
Reflection
This has been a very fun and enlightening experience. I think what I learned most is to work iteratively and that things never go as planned.
I took this as a great learning experience, where I view the pivot like the production taking a different direction and I need to rethink the level and try to fit it into a new setting. I think if I had more time I would add a combat encounter at the end of the level. Other than that I think it’s been a fun experience and I’ve learned a lot about working iteratively and solving design problems by having playtests and identifying problems.
I feel like I achieved my goal by creating a level that feels alive, has scripted events and that players enjoyed the levels flow. This led me to be satisfied with the level.
Thanks for reading!
Ediz