I used a hex grid instead of a square one because 90% of the level geometry is in hexes.

Reference images:

Level Plan:
This was my original map from Level Design 1.

Originally, my plan was to have the player explore the desert and try to find the saloon, where he or she cold then explore the insides and have a drink. The player could enter the saloon two ways; the front door, or the back door via sewer. However, I’m not sure if my initial goal was too ambitious, so I have decided to alter what happens to the player once they reach the saloon.

Once the player walks inside of the saloon, they will be blinded by the light coming from inside. The music will get louder, and they will be transported back to the starting point. If the player chooses the alternate route, they will be blinded by the light and be brought back to the spawn point as soon as they walk up the stairs from the basement (where the sewer leads them).

Here is the updated version of the map. Note the sewer’s outline here. 

The overall mood for the setting will be dark. The level will only be lit by the moon and light coming from the street lamp and saloon.

Modular elements:

These concepts are rough sketches of what I plan to create. The assorted bottles will be found in the basement of the saloon, as stock inside of shelves.

Color Swatches:

Because I’m going for a gloomy mood, the colors needed are dark. The midnight blue sky will go well against the sand and buildings.

Reference:

Combining the art deco style with the western style may be the biggest obstacle. The saloon has to have the right mixture of both in order for the mood to be set correctly.

Pirate Island is a map with a lower beach area and an upper jungle area. The player can move up and down via the cave through the mountain and can also jump down from the jungle into the pool of water by the waterfall.

Due to there being a lot of outdoor areas, I cannot really repeat a lot of the same “wall”. Instead, I am going to try to make repeatable assets and try to make an interconnecting rock face as well as jungle perimeter. I need the jungle perimeter to prevent players from wondering through the paths.

Reference:

 I really want a cartoony vibe or the game, so I decided to use a lot of hard angles instead of organic smooth skin and such. I would like my character and a lot of the assets to not have any curves on them. The style sort of reminds me of folk art, wood carved figurines like the one above and below. Ideally, I would really like to make my character like the torso bust 2 down with the planar model style.

I also really like the styles of Monkey Island. I want to try to replicate a lot of what that game had visually, but in 3D of course.

I also really like the art for this new game by Owlchemy Labs, Dyscourse. It has very geometric art. It again, is 2D, so I have the challenge of making it 3D as well.

Artist’s Remorse – The Grid [Opus]

EDIT: Click the pictures to see the full grid. For some reason, the resizing takes out a grid line.

Artist’s Remorse’s level design is compact and decidedly busy in regard to how it handles the grid. The grid holds everything together and is home to two separate renditions of the Opus Level. Below is a look at the grid in its simplest form. As I go along, I will add information until everything is on top of each other, making it a confusing mess.

Opus Grid:

Now below this is the Opus Grid with the first iteration/part of the level. I’ve decided to call this Opus I.

Originally, it was my intention to introduce control of the detective to the player after making it completely inside the room. So, there really was only ever supposed to be the 11×11 square grid. After the added requirement of there being an outdoors scene, I added a little extra to the story. Take a look at Opus I; the red represents objects on the floor, while the purple areas represent hot zones for the player. The bottom room in Opus I is supposed to be boring, yet hold some key bits of information to possibly foreshadow the first event. With the introduction of lights in the scene, you begin to have a sense of what the flow should look like in the level.

The first event is triggered when the player is able to completely see Opus I. After obtaining the information from the desk and the walls on the to the door, the detective/player may enter. Only for a short moment does the player see the room before the Opus haunting begins. During this event, the door closes and the detective must pull out his flashlight. The player is now standing in Opus II, seen below with lights and hot zones.

When Opus II is becomes “active,” the player may now begin their investigation. Notice the fallen bookcase and addition of the trash can and pool of blood. Opus I is a presentation of the room one month before the suicide occurs, while Opus II is the room the day the detective enters Opus’s home.

Nothing is final at the moment, the bookcase and similar changes are to conceptualize the transition from Opus I to Opus II.

With the walls completely covered in hot zones, the flow starts to turn into itself. The player will have to make more than one pass around the room to solve the puzzle. Inspecting the drawings will lead the player to learn more about Opus’s life before he trapped himself in his room, along with how his mind mutated and deformed as he suffered severe depression and malnourishment.

Once the player has solved the puzzle and saved Opus’s soul, the haunting will end and the door will open. As I said earlier, it was originally only supposed to be Opus’s room, but now the player, may actually leave the room to do a little extra investigating. The door opens to the outdoors, a stone step leading to Opus’s gravestone with his violin leaning against it. Behind the headstone, there is a wall covered in a tribute to Opus and his life before his depression took him away from the world.

I’m holding out on the story of Opus, so there is a little more wonder when I am able to present the level to the class.

And to give you a big mess, here is the grid with all of the objects, lights, and hot zones, with the flow lines to boot:

Modular Design:

Because the level is so small, there will be limited modular design. The most important element of the level is the number of drawings pinned all over the walls. The drawings will either be projected onto the walls or onto sheets of crumpled, paper. Below is a simple, yet dark concept of the design in Artist’s Remorse.

Color Swatches:

Reference Images:

WARNING [To those with weak stomachs, there is some grotesque imagery below]

First off, I drew a basic level layout on graph paper. Since I’m going for more of a sidescroller perspective, I showed the map from the side, rather than from the top.

Pretty sure that a real toilet pipe wouldn’t go straight down into an empty room like that, but hey, it’s a game. After the initial layout was done, I put in some basic coloring.

Though this initial coloring isn’t all that bad, I feel it was a touch unfocused, with spots of color thrown in a little too haphazardly. I wanted to differentiate the rooms by color but got a little too extreme with the variation. As such, I’ve revised something a bit more conservative. I break down the new color palette in the image below.

Here’s a collage of reference images I collected. There’s a few pieces of generic sewer art, some from video game levels (Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot), and some more specific details, such as pipes, steel plating, and grates.

Next up are a few concept sketches for some of the modular elements, as well as the boss object.

I started with a simple large sewer pipe wall that would act as a basic building block for the level. Ill-aligned plate metal covers the curved part, while the flat floor will probably be some kind of concrete. I’ve also considered having pipes lining the walls as a way to break up the monotony.

Next is a smaller tunnel section which acts as a clear break between different rooms. It’s a much smaller and shorter pipe that will probably have a darker coloring. I also include a grate wall surrounded by stonework, to act as boundary the player cannot cross.

Lastly, I threw in a catwalk for good measure, as there’ll be a couple of them to bridge gaps.

At this stage, I’m still hesitant to commit to a direction for the boss object. I considered having him just as a standalone mutated fish, without any metal housing or weapons. If I take this path, I’d have to decide whether he’s just a 2D sprite or a fully fleshed 3D model.

(By the way, I’m going for a Paper Mario-esque style, meaning most characters are 2D sprites. Sometimes the convention is broken for boss characters, who may appear as 3D models for dramatic effect.)

If given a metal housing, it’d definitely be more optimal to model it in 3D. I want to make a quirky, scrapped-together hunk of machinery, with pipes, pistons, and weaponry flailing off it in random directions. A tank in the center would show the shriveled up fish, kept alive only by the ridiculous contraption built around him.

After sketching a concept for a laser, it’s shape accidentally reminded me of a hairdryer. This brought up the idea of designing his weapons as if they were scrapped together from bathroom accessories that somehow made their way down the drain.

In this case, the machine gun is admittedly a bit overkill, but in a universe where toilet drains are direct vertical pipes into a dead-end room, and goldfish can manage to survive in such an environment and foster that much hate and revenge, I don’t think it’d be too out of whack for military-grade weaponry to end up in the sewer somehow.

[Note: I’m posting a new version of assignment one here because I thought of a new idea that I like a bit better than my original concept.]

Moira prides herself on being quick on her feet, a necessary skill when you have to steal your day-to-day meals.

The Character:
Moira is our young protagonist (about 14-15 years old). Coming from a poor background, Moira spends her day playing in the streets with other children her age, and sees nothing wrong from taking from the wealthy when she is in need. The abundant smells and flavors of the market are extremely alluring, especially when she’s looking for a snack.

Level Setting:
The level takes place in a busy indoor marketplace that is full of vendors, produce stalls, and shoppers. The player will be guided along a linear path, which navigates around a first room, ascends to the roof, and then drops down into another room.

The Art:
The marketplace is bright and busy, with lots going on! The 3D navigable space will be full of colorful people and foods on display. The textures on the low-poly models will be bold, flat colors, resulting in a highly stylized feel.

The Gameplay:
As Moira, the player must navigate through a linear level while collecting the ingredients to make the perfect lunchtime sandwich. Starting with a stolen loaf of bread, Moira must also steal a tomato, cheese, some lettuce, and prosciutto and then navigate to the exit of the marketplace.
The player will navigate using standard PC controls (WASD to move, mouse to control camera angle and movement). There will also be a jump command (spacebar) that is needed to clear small obstacles, like crates.
Moira must also avoid the police and the vendors she steals each item of food from.

Audio:
The musical track accompanying this fast-paced level will be upbeat. I want the music to sound playful, reflective of Moira’s childish demeanor.

You are in a factory of assembly lines of some sort. You realized that some of the elements that you see every day are not what it seems to be. The dark secret to all of this is that some of the animals you see aren’t actual animals. They are robots that spy on people 24/7 and try to keep the higher ups up to date with current civilization activity.

The factory is dark, somewhat disturbing as it mass produces robots with eerie metallic sounds and clanks. Steam can cloudy up the area, so you should be careful that you don’t walk onto a machine’s treadmill to only be caught in the installation of nuts and bolts and anything that could be weld onto metal.

This game will play like an action adventure game, sort of like Uncharted series.

The game is a first person role play. Black is a story of a man walking throw scenes of his live as a kid and trying to change the choices he made. Past, present and future are not delimited and his only objective is preventing himself from ending his life.

The scenarios are supposed to be colorful and contrast with the main character design that is presented as a silhouette. The level concept is inspired in the movie Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé and is supposed to be vivid but also really dark and weird. The main space is a club where the main character made one of his bad life decisions. The game is not set in a specific year, so I intend to insert in the scenario objects of different periods.

Fly High Sky

It’s 1971, and you’ve found yourself in a hotel room at the Flamingo in Las Vegas with no idea how or why. The place is in ruins, a catastrophe of biblical proportions. What happened last night? Was it even last night? How long have you been here? Whatever the answer is, you’d best figure it out as quick as you can. It’s amazing hotel security hasn’t shown up yet, but there’s no way you can fly under the radar for too much longer. Time to piece things together, get your stuff, and get out of town. Fast.

The player begins in a 70’s style hotel suite, completely trashed. The player needs to move around to specific spots in the room, uncovering objects which will trigger pre-scripted flashbacks to help the player piece together what happened up until this point.

Color Palette-meant to evoke a late 70′-early 80’s sense of Vegas kitsch

https://kuler.adobe.com/Bat-Country-color-theme-4359331/

Story:

Far into the future, our world has changed almost beyond recognition.  No longer is humanity bound to the Earth’s surface, but instead lives among the clouds, its civilization spread across a vast system of floating islands.  These islands range from sprawling metropolises to dense jungles to rolling countryside and to everything in between; little chunks of the Earth suspended miles above its surface.  If you were to ask around, nobody would be able to tell you for certain why these islands stay in the air or how they got there.  Though the details humanity’s migration to the sky and the establishment of its new society have faded into the mists of history, the people take for granted that A. the floating islands will stay floating because they always have and B. nobody should go down to the planet’s surface because nobody ever does.

For this society to function, passage between islands is crucial, but instead of planes and jets, the people rely on great airships to transport people and goods across the world.  These ships resemble the wooden seafaring sailing ships of old, but each has some assortment of balloons, propellers, and propulsion engines to keep the aloft.  Many see owning an airship as their ultimate aspiration, as captaining your own vessel is the only true freedom in a world where everything is isolated from everything else.  But ships are obscenely expensive and hard to come by, so for most, this dream is exactly that: a dream.

One of these dreamers happens to be the hero of our story, Roy Reynder.  Roy has always dreamed of leaving his small town and his sparse island and sailing the skies in search of adventure.  But not much ever happened at home and ships rarely came into port, so he would satiate his thrill-seeking tendencies by antagonizing the locals and hanging out around the Drop (the edge of the island; where the ground meets the sky).

However, rumors have been floating around lately that some islands have begun falling out of the sky without warning, their inhabitants never to be heard from again.  On top of that, officers from the world government, the Blue Sky Republic, have been showing up at Roy’s home asking vague, unusual questions about a strange capsule-like object that Roy’s late mother had left him.

One day, the island began to shake.  People could feel shifting and creaking and groaning beneath their feet.  The same day, the Blue Sky Republic arrived with a fully armed squad ready to take Roy’s mysterious heirloom by force.   Our hero became acutely aware that it was time to bail.  Fortunately, his years of reckless shenanigans had made him at least slightly competent at pulling his own ass out of the fire, and he managed to give the main force the slip and sneak aboard one of their smaller ships with the capsule.  Now, all he has to do is take out the small rear guard and gain control of the vessel and go anywhere but here.  He prepares himself for a fight as his home begins to plummet downward…

The level, which is called Lucid, takes place in a dream world. Set in 1950’s suburban America, the player character explores the environment that has been skewed by the surreal nature of their dream. Normally familiar archetypes of the era are made unfamiliar; some are whimsical, and some are unsettling. Interactive objects will behave in unnatural ways; the player could walk up to a poster advertisement and pick up an item pictured on it, a heavy car could float away at the lightest touch, and a house could turn inside-out.

The level will be a primarily outdoor environment, with some limited indoor segments. It will be in first-person, with interactive objects, plenty of exploration, and some simple platforming. The player’s objective is simple: find a bed in the level, and sleep in it (in a more complete game around this concept, there would be many levels like this one, and the player’s objective in each one would still be to find the bed. Some of the levels might take place outside of the dreams, while most others would be in dreams of varying tone, but consistent setting). The bed would not be readily available; the player must complete certain tasks to find it and reach it.

Iconic symbols of the 1950’s will be on display in the level, and many will be incorporated into solving the level’s challenges. The player will be able to identify what objects are affected by the dream visually (this detail remains uncertain; currently I’m thinking the objects should be surrounded by a haze created by a particle effect), so that the level’s challenges don’t end up being incomprehensible.

A poster/billboard that will appear in the level.

Setting: Victorian/steam punk England

The game would be a third person role play game, set in fictional history in Victorian England. The story is about an engineer from present day travel to the past by sitting in a magical chamber in a train which was made during the first industrial revolution. In this game, the player have knowledge, skills and devices of the “future”, however he is limited to use those skills since “current” technology does not have the basics to support those advanced technology. The goal of the game is to craft tools and do missions, protect the chamber, search for the designer of the chamber and finally fix the secret chamber and come back to present day.

The level I am going to build will be a the first level, the train station. The character will get off the train and start the journey from here.This level will serve the purpose of introducing the background story of the game and some basic game mechanics. At the same time, the level will also be the home base where the vault is located and player can sign up for missions.

In term of art style, I think the best reference will be the first two games of Bioshock series, a fantastical steam-punk city. In this level, there will be different shops that player can visit to get familiar with the money system of the game. Since the player can only move inside of the train station, I assume most of the lighting will be artificial spot light.

Pirate Islnad Concept

Game Summary

My game takes place on a tropical island which a pirate ship has beached on. The pirates were on a voyage to gain riches and had a map which said there was treasure on the island. Upon arriving, a storm hit and the boat was driven ashore and hit by a rock. The pirates all double crossed each other thinking they could find the treasure on their own, but many die in the search. There are is an indigenous people on the island as well.

The main character was a crew member of the ship with hopes of raising through the ranks. Upon arriving on the island, he sets off on his own to find the treasure like many others. He does well for himself by making a small fort, but he wishes to get off the island. Battling hunger, indigenous tribes, and other pirates, he must try to build a raft to leave as well as try to find the treasure he had wanted find.

The game starts at the base the character had set up. It is up to the player to explore the island while avoiding all the hazards. The island is quite large with caves, jungles, beaches, etc. There are treasure chests to find as well as rival pirate caches to steal from. The whole premise is to escape though, so the payer must be on the lookout for raft supplies.

The game will be third person.

Art Style

The game will have a very angular, primitive art style. I was thinking of Team Fortress 2 a little bit combined with a vector art feel. I am trying to go for a flat 3D game, which seems odd, but I believe it will be interesting. The game will definitely be cartoonish with animations, environment, and characters. A related animation style would be that of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I was also inspired by The Secret of Monkey Island (the redone one) as well.

I will use saturated colors to make it more visually appealing, but I still want a gloomy mood a little. It will be a challenge to do.

Everyone knows that ‘time is money’. To what lengths would humans go to buy themselves more time?
In this world, sleep has become a past-time, a time waster, and a profession. The rich and famous hire ‘Sleepers’ to dream their dreams so that they can be awake and alive.
You are a ‘Sleeper’. You spend your days in a dark room in a dark city, with buildings so tall they block out the natural light of the sun. You sleep and sleep and dream ideas that are not your own. Soon these memories of others will draw you into a dark conspiracy, but not yet. For now it is only important that the little time you spend awake, and as yourself, is lived in the way you want.

Level Setting:
During this level, the player is introduced to our character, Sonya, who awakes from a client’s dream. Realizing it’s almost dawn, Sonya departs her small apartment and leaves the city to watch the sunrise. She walks through the city to her bike and then drives the rest of the way.
(This will allow me to focus on creating a visually appealing and explorable environment, rather than one centered around game mechanics.)

The City:
The city in which my level takes place is based on a near-future imagination of Manhattan. Confined to a small surface area, the city has built upward as its population has grown, creating skyscrapers three times as tall as the ones we know today. To accommodate this vertical growth, the city has numerous platforms which divide the city into layers. The further down one goes, the more reliant on artificial lighting the environment becomes.
The technology present in this world is largely based off of current day advancements. Small futuristic adaptations exist, but I want the player to feel a sense of familiarity when navigating through the level. What differences there are will be treated as commonplace.
As an example: Sonya’s bike is modeled off of a WW2 era motorcycle, but the back end hovers. It is a mix between the old and recognized and the futuristic.

Outside:
Beyond the city limits is a vast wasteland of nothingness. The Earth is dry and parched from overuse and has been long since abandoned for the relative ease of city life. Wildlife is practically nonexistent, and what plants remain are brittle and weak. The one unaltered power is the sun, left untouched by man. Watching the sunrise will be a stark contrast to the dark and dirty city Sonya has traveled through to get here.

Gameplay:
The gameplay of this introductory level will be limited to navigation and some point-and-click style object interactions.
The player will navigate through the city by using the arrows keys to move and the mouse to interact with objects. The areas will be presented as screens (in a ‘Walking Dead’ or ‘Final Fantasy 7’ style) with a fixed side-view camera, but the player will be able to navigate freely around the screen.

Art Style:
The art style for the city portion of this level will include low-poly models with detailed textures. I’ll be aiming for a stylized look with a dark and grungy color palette, featuring primarily grays, greens, and unsaturated colors.
The wilderness will be much more vast and sparsely decorated, but will feature warm colors.

Audio:
The music for this level will be minimalist, perhaps only becoming very noticeable during the sunrise. I want the player to be focused on sound effects instead, which I think will make the City setting feel more sinister and cold.

Jonathan Decelle

IMGD 3500

Story Concept

The story for this level and world has been told before in some ways. The world is a dark and desolate place. Nuclear war and the destruction of fresh water supplies have left the land and water ruined.  People are struggling to find food, water, to survive. This is a dangerous world where bandits are rampant and only the strong or those that work together can survive. But there are always anomalies in a world like this, people that manage to tough it out on their own and create a world for themselves. Somehow with all the bandits these strange people manage to make their way in the world despite how dangerous it is. These people are always intriguing and tend to have secrets. In this case the nomad we are looking at has terrible secrets hidden beneath his home in the middle of the wasteland. Networks of tunnels with horrible sights run beneath the quaint shack that sits on top of the land.

The player in this game is a person simply looking for help surviving. The group the player was with is gone killed by bandits and the bandits won’t stop until the player is dead. Left with nowhere else run the player burst into the beat down shack that stands mysteriously by itself. The runs in and finds it is not empty. A lone man sits at a table a gun next to his chair. The main calmly rises grabs his gun and moves towards the window. The player hears a hail of bullets as his vision starts to fade and he passes out.  The player comes to sitting up at the table while the man from before takes a sip from a mug. The man offers the player a drink which the player gladly accepts. After some conversation the player once again slips into unconsciousness this time realizing his drink has been drugged.

The player now finds himself at the bottom of an extensive network of tunnels as a prisoner of the loner in the wasteland. Our player has survived for this long in the wasteland which says a lot about his ability to survive, but is by no means a seasoned warrior. Somehow he’s scavenged his way and survived, but this is a completely different situation. He now finds himself in the clutches of a sadistic disturbed individual. Grotesque horrific sights line the walls of this maze of tunnels that lie beneath the home.

Art Style

The art style the game will be very dark. The outside world is extremely desolate with lots of flushed out colors oranges, yellows, grays. Inspiration for the wasteland will be drawn from post-apocalyptic settings like The Road Warrior, and Rage. Underneath in the tunnels beneath it is dark and dank. It’s a disturbing area that has been filled with years of horrifying acts, which terrify the main character. For the theme and art style I want to take cues from horror movies over the years. Movies like America Psycho or Silence of the Lambs have sets that are truly horrifying conceptually and visually. The player will feel alone and desperate, as they struggle through numerous tunnels filled with the horrifying experiments created there. The underground dungeon will be a mix of natural caverns and futuristic tunnels.

Yellow Jacket’s Hive

Setting:  underground lab / space base, with a lot of Tron mixed in

Gameplay:

Single player

Metroidvania

2D sidescrolling gameplay, 3D graphics

Level Concept:  A massive beehive built into the side of a cave (and a bar), somewhat mazelike; at the top, it opens to a wind farm at early sunset, where you fight the boss

Story:

The creatures of Chroma are all happy and content- each lives in their own colorized area, working with one another to create a happy society.  One day, the wizard Mr. White appeared and mind controlled the leaders of all the color zones!  Hex- a monochrome black & white wizard-in-training- has to go through all the zones and beat the leaders to snap them back to normal!  By defeating each leader, he’ll gain their power, which he can use both to fight and to continue through the puzzling levels of the game.

(It’s basically Megaman, except everything is heavily themed by color and shape, and nobody is a robot.  Also the gameplay has a stronger focus on exploration and all the areas connect Metroid-style.)

At this point in the game, the player has defeated one or two bosses already- the level will start in the very end of the cyan zone, and will show the transition from one color zone to another.  The player’s goal in the level is to progress through the hive, get to the top, and defeat Yellow Jacket, the boss.  They should also grab any powerups and make note of any branching paths along the way- this is partially inspired by Metroid, after all.

The boss, Yellow Jacket, is the leader of the beehive, and the one who set up the wind turbine system atop the hive.  All the creatures of Chroma need the hive to get their power, so it’s imperative the player get it back to normal!

The level prior to the hive was a cyan speakeasy, where patrons could order pure energy (collected from the hive).  As a result, there will be giant power cables working their way down the hive to the start of the level- these will also be used as an indicator of the correct way to go through the winding tunnels.

Full disclosure: this is building off of an idea I’ve had for a while, so I do already have one asset ready- the boss of the area, Yellow Jacket, is an already rigged and textured model.  He has one finished animation.

His design was based heavily off of a sketch made by Dillon Desimone, who is also taking this course.  Everything else I’ll be making over the course of this class will be entirely new and designed exclusively by me.

Art Style:

Nearly everything in the level besides the player character will be monochromatic from black to yellow.  (Some enemies may be themed like other bosses / areas, and thus be tinted their respective shades instead.)  The power lines that lead the player will be cyan, both to remind that their use is for the cyan zone, and to have a clear path to follow.  Inspired heavily by Tron.

Audio:
Again, heavily inspired by Tron.  Lots of synths, lots of bips and beeps.  I might make it sound NES-y by trying to lock myself to 2 sine waves, a triangle wave, and a noise wave, but that might be too retro for the style I’m going for.  I’ll have to experiment a lot with this.

SETTING & STORY:

My game environment is set in a temple, located on a hilltop above a city in a semi-realistic game world. The religion, climate, and plant life are loosely based on northern Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, while the architecture is loosely based on Moroccan buildings.

All the buildings on the temple grounds are old and overgrown, but not  in a complete state of ruin. The flowering vines that grow within the walls are revered as sacred and are allowed to grow wild. Small cracks have formed in the stone over time as small flowers and grasses push through. Colorful flowering vines wrap around the columns and cover large sections of the roof.

The temple is dedicated to a bee goddess who is believed to support agriculture, longevity and productivity. She was once one of the most important deities of the primary religion in this region, revered especially by farmers. As the society moved forward into a more industrial and trade-based economy, she gradually became less significant, and is now considered a minor deity. A small group of devoted priestesses still maintain the temple and grounds, but few outsiders now visit.

The temple was originally built on the site of a large beehive. It originally began in the hollowed stump of a tree which had grown above a natural spring. Over time, the spring tunneled out a channel beneath the tree. The tree’s roots eventually rotted and broke through the roof of the tunnel, allowing the bees expanded their hive downwards through these holes, lining the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. When the temple was built, a special entrance was constructed to allow human access to the underground portion of the hive, and a small shrine was built beneath the tree.

The bees themselves are believed to be the reincarnations of former priestesses, so loved by the goddess that she would not be parted from them by death. Their honey and wax is the goddess’ gift to the people of the city, and a healthy, productive hive is a sign of her continued blessing and goodwill.

CHARACTER:

The player character is a young priestess at the temple, who will be controlled in third person.

Her appearance is based on a combination of ancient and modern beekeeping techniques. Similar to a modern beekeeping suit, the fabric is loose to keep bees away from the skin, with tight wrappings sealing the neck, wrists and ankles to prevent bees from becoming trapped under the fabric. Her head is shaved based on the ancient belief that scented oils in hair agitated the bees.

GAMEPLAY:

My level will be primarily exploration-based, with the focus being on the artistic aspects of the design. The player will be able to explore both the upper temple and the tunnel below. It will be like the beginning of a game, intended to establish a setting and introduce the first part of the story. I particularly want to try to explain the back-story through the setting, especially the carvings and artwork in the temple.

If it were extended into a full game, the player would have to embark on a journey to find a cure after a mysterious sickness infects the beehive. If I have time to implement any dialogue I would like to start telling this story as well.

ART STYLE:

The style is semi-realistic, with vibrant colors and slightly stylized characters. I want to give it a slightly otherworldly feeling to emphasize the idea of a sacred place. The game will be set in mid-afternoon, with bright sunlight illuminating the plants and buildings. The palette will be primarily greens, yellows, and white.

SOUND:

The level will have a small amount of nature sounds, especially the buzzing of the bees. Music will be light and simple to complement the natural landscape.

Assignment 1, Part 3 –Level Creation – Concept Art & Story

Concept: Combination of art deco Metropolis and the Wild West

Story:

The year is 2030. Set in an alternate universe where Earth has advanced too much for its own good, the human race has been enslaved by the technology that they once created in the mid-1950s. Only 25% of the population remains, crammed into the western half of the United States. Sunlight is scarce in the city, as it is overrun with heavy pollution. Civilians are lucky to live to the age of 30 due to such conditions.

The president of this dystopia has complete control over the civilians while they are inside of “the wall”, yet once every week, a citizen is granted freedom for 6 hours where they are set to be free outside of the wall, if they are on good terms with the government. While this is rare to be the case, certain civilians do indeed get the chance to let loose, and have a break from working inside of the walled city.

What lies outside of “the wall” is said to be nothing more than desert and a barren wasteland. However, legend has it that there is an old saloon hidden in the darkness. Even though this old saloon is just an old tourist attraction given a fresh make-over to fit the visuals of the generation, it is often called the Fountain of Youth. The inside of the saloon is said to be beautiful, with marble floors, fresh upholstery, and “Gatsby” worthy architecture. A humanoid robot is said to await your order once you step inside.

YOU are the player; Unbeknownst, you were granted access to have your day of peace. Waking up just outside of the walls, after being set free for your 6 hours you must find your way to the saloon. Legend has it that the music can be distinctly heard once outside of the walls.

Art Style

The art style that I am going for is influenced by Team Fortress 2. TF2 had such influences as J.C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, and Norman Rockwell. I feel like all of these art styles are perfect for capturing an art deco setting with Wild West elements.

Audio

Music playing from the saloon, foot step noises, and dialogue to be spoken by the bartender robot are necessary. The player will be silent.

Game Play

The player will start from a blurred screen, giving the look that they are regaining consciousness. Once they regain consciousness, they must navigate through the evening desert, trying to find the saloon by following the music with WASD and mouse.

Once inside of the saloon, the player will be able to explore the saloon.  Interacting with the bar tender, changing the music on the juke box, and perhaps having a drink or two before being cut off are actions I would like to implement into the level.

Level Idea: Rainy Day

Truth be told, ‘Rainy Day’ is not so much a level of a game as a standalone world designed to tell a self-contained story through the environment and characters in said environment. Through simple choices in the short game world, a small set of outcomes can be reached. The gameplay is largely simple exploration and interaction with the set of npcs along the path of the level.

The general idea is portray the player on their way back from work, walking in the rain. The character being played is a genderless figure in a raincoat, designed to be a self-insert for the player.  The ‘story’- that the character was fired from work and is left to return home in the rain- is revealed through dialogue with characters scattered along the way home. Players have to explore and find these people to learn the full story, and in doing so ca change the outcome of the level.

Additionally, players will be able to interact with specific NPCs along the walk home, who require specific actions to be performed. These actions are simple- usually just interacting with the character in a certain way or interacting with a nearby object for them. Doing these mini-quests will change the outcome of the level as well.

To further specify how the level will play out, here is an “Order of Events” in the level:

1. The player’s character arrives via train at an elevated city station. The din of the rain above can be heard, dully.
2. As the player descends to road level, the rain sounds become much clearer and pronounced. The city around them is dimly lit, using few light sources and largely desaturated colors to evoke the sense of a crumby day.
3. The player proceeds on the walk home. By interacting with most characters, the player can learn the story behind their character and why this walk home is particularly important.

3a.  These NPCs will do nothing more than stand around idly. IE: The conductor of the train, or a man waiting for the bus.

4. Certain other NPCs will have small tasks to ask of the player, which will be mechanically simple. Completing these can cause changes in the player’s demeanor, causing small changes in the character’s walk and idle animations.

4a.  These NPCs will be things like a small restaurant owner trying to close down for the day, or a smoker asking for a light.

5. Upon reaching the final stop, the character’s home, they will be welcomed inside. Depending on how many people they talked to and how many people they helped, the character’s demeanor will be at a specific value. Depending on their demeanor, an unseen person inside the home will greet them differently, ranging from a reluctant hello to saying that they missed you while you were out.

Visually, I want to adopt a simplistic style that amplifies atmosphere rather than realism. Characters and NPCs are cartoonish and stylized, with bolder colors to make them stand out from the drab environment. Textures are simple and defined, using clear edges to block out important details in a mock ‘cel-shaded’ look.

The environment visuals will be similarly textured, but will be limited in a number of ways. Too many ‘rainy cityscape’ environments feature grand fluorescent lights illuminating the barren streets, reflecting off the puddles in the road. That is NOT the mood I want to evoke- I want to instead go for the muted grays of a drizzly day, with only a few dim lights coming from the streetlights and windows along the road. The brightest light sources arefrom the odd passing car, which is uncommon, but loud and jarring. A steamy haze will be rising out of manholes and drains, as well as smokestacks and vents along the buildings. The ‘Rainy Day’ that is portrayed is lethargic and oppressive, not refreshing or cleansing.

The time of day that ‘Rainy Day’ takes place is just before sunset, with the clouds blocking out what little sun remains. The lighting will be ambient but very weak, and any shadows present in alleyways and crannies will be very dark. It is not yet dark enough for things like streetlights and windowlights to stand out very much against the grey backdrop.

It is VERY important that the player gets the notion of a ‘bad day’ right at the beginning of the level. Any sound is muted by the din of the rain, or interrupted by the passing of cars. The character’s pace is slow and weak, only picking up a little when NPCs are interacted with.

There isn’t really a true “Objective” to ‘Rainy Day’. While the level is completed by getting home, ‘Rainy Day’ is meant to be a showcase for the story inside it. One COULD say that you ‘win’ by talking to every NPC and achieving the most positive end, but all that does is tell a different story, not a better one.