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About:
Four-player co-op multiplayer first-person shooter set in the Walking Dead universe. In this project I had the opritunity of collaberating with all kinds of diciplines in order to go from ideas and paper to actual gameplay. I primarily worked on three levels; "Open Season", "Join or Die" and "On The Run". |
Specification:
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Open Season
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Join or Die
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On The Run
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Open Season
Responsibilities:
Objective:
Find a way into the department store, locate Reina (leader for "The Family" faction) and extract her.
About:
This level plays out mid-way through the story in a mall and is where the players finds and captures the leader of "The Family" and also get introduced to the "Brigade" (both are opposing faction for the players).
In this level I really wanted to push the height variations as much as I could while also bread-crumbing with story and challenges. To achieve that I had the players walking the same path as the "Brigade" took to get to "The Family". The players would have to fight members from both "The Family" and the "Brigade" that had turned into walkers. Thus not knowing exactly what had happened and what was waiting for them further ahead.
- Level blockout.
- Combat layout.
- Events, puzzles and general scripting implementation.
- General maintenance.
Objective:
Find a way into the department store, locate Reina (leader for "The Family" faction) and extract her.
About:
This level plays out mid-way through the story in a mall and is where the players finds and captures the leader of "The Family" and also get introduced to the "Brigade" (both are opposing faction for the players).
In this level I really wanted to push the height variations as much as I could while also bread-crumbing with story and challenges. To achieve that I had the players walking the same path as the "Brigade" took to get to "The Family". The players would have to fight members from both "The Family" and the "Brigade" that had turned into walkers. Thus not knowing exactly what had happened and what was waiting for them further ahead.
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When the players reach the first main hall of the mall they get to fight humans (brigade) on the second floor balconies. After that they need to traverse down to the ground floor which is zombie infested. Smaller gates can be opened by the players to let zombies up from the ground floor to cause a distraction and ease the difficulty dealing with the humans above. In the main hall they also must repair a generator on the bottom floor to progress through the mall (powering up shutters). |
To make the level more re-playable I made three different routes that the players could end up having. The first route goes through a Library. The second route goes through another section of the main hall. The third route goes through the same section where the players gets there through a hardware store at the bottom floor and must first fight some zombies before being able to deal with the humans above.
The Library path.
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The path through another section of the mall.
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The path through the hardware store.
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Upon finding Reina they have to rescue her from being executed and then find a way out to call for extraction.
Join or Die
Responsibilities:
Objective:
The objective for this level is to find and infiltrate the lincoln camp to assassinate Hurst, the leader of the brigade.
About:
For the finale I wanted to create a level that was more stealth focused. The players starts in a more CQC oriented part of the level that plays out in tunnels. Upon surfacing the players get presented with the Lincoln Memorial which is the place they need to infiltrate in order to kill Hurst (the antagonist). The players then has to make their way to the camp to infiltrate it.
After infiltrating the players has to either stealth or fight their way to Hurst who is located at the heart of the camp (the monument itself).
The decision to add the underground segment was to add more environmental variation to an already lengthy level to help keeping the players a bit more invested.
To encourage the players have to sneak through the level I present dangerous encounters while also having safer routes close by which requires either distractions or tools (which can be crafted during a playthrough) in order to open up hidden paths etc.
I utilized the horde meter* in this level to increase difficulty in human enemy placements and events. This to add more variety depending on how the players experience the mission while also making it more immersive. An example of this would be that if the horde meter would be at its max level then human enemies would stand ready behind cover protecting key paths leading towards the main goal (Hurst).
Dealing with the flat landscape of the national mall, the location where the monument is at I had to take some artistic freedom and add some more height variations to make the gameplay a bit more meaningful. I justified the added terrain as fortifications to keep the zombies out. This gave the camp a more menacing look while also helping the gameplay.
*Horde meter is a system that adds more zombies into the level depending on how much noise the players generate while playing (gunshots, traps etc.)
- Level blockout.
- Combat layout.
- Events, puzzles and general scripting implementation.
- General maintenance.
Objective:
The objective for this level is to find and infiltrate the lincoln camp to assassinate Hurst, the leader of the brigade.
About:
For the finale I wanted to create a level that was more stealth focused. The players starts in a more CQC oriented part of the level that plays out in tunnels. Upon surfacing the players get presented with the Lincoln Memorial which is the place they need to infiltrate in order to kill Hurst (the antagonist). The players then has to make their way to the camp to infiltrate it.
After infiltrating the players has to either stealth or fight their way to Hurst who is located at the heart of the camp (the monument itself).
The decision to add the underground segment was to add more environmental variation to an already lengthy level to help keeping the players a bit more invested.
To encourage the players have to sneak through the level I present dangerous encounters while also having safer routes close by which requires either distractions or tools (which can be crafted during a playthrough) in order to open up hidden paths etc.
I utilized the horde meter* in this level to increase difficulty in human enemy placements and events. This to add more variety depending on how the players experience the mission while also making it more immersive. An example of this would be that if the horde meter would be at its max level then human enemies would stand ready behind cover protecting key paths leading towards the main goal (Hurst).
Dealing with the flat landscape of the national mall, the location where the monument is at I had to take some artistic freedom and add some more height variations to make the gameplay a bit more meaningful. I justified the added terrain as fortifications to keep the zombies out. This gave the camp a more menacing look while also helping the gameplay.
*Horde meter is a system that adds more zombies into the level depending on how much noise the players generate while playing (gunshots, traps etc.)
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Use of landmarks: Introducing the monument and framing it often was important to have a clear goal for the player to walk towards. Due to the scale of the level and to prevent the players to become lost or disoriented I tried utilizing the waypoints the best as I could. This I would do by making sure that either the Lincoln Monument or the Washington Monument was in view at as many locations as possible. These two would act as beacons to keep the player oriented in the level. |
On The Run
Responsibilities:
There are four different missions for this level:
About the general level:
In this level we tried pushing replay-ability further with the help of a few new design choices. We opened up the level; giving it a near 360 approach for the players. This also came with random entrance points with different tool requirements for the players. We also implemented randomized player spawn locations as well as randomized weather conditions.
*Horde meter is a system that adds more zombies into the level depending on how much noise the players generate while playing (gunshots, traps etc.)
- Combat layout.
- Events, puzzles and general script implementation.
- General maintenance.
There are four different missions for this level:
- Story: In a camp located at a gas station the players need to find information on how they can get to Patterson.
- Scavenge: The players need to raid a camp located at a gas station to get some fuel. While using the fuel pumps they need to keep a loud rusty generator running (which can break down randomly with a loud bang increasing the horde meter*). If that would happen it needs to be repaired in order to get more fuel). The more fuel they decide to get the more zombies will be drawn within the walls of the camp.
- Rescue: The players need to infiltrate and rescue a survivor located in the camp.
- Assassination: The player will have to infiltrate and kill a high value target from the brigade.
About the general level:
In this level we tried pushing replay-ability further with the help of a few new design choices. We opened up the level; giving it a near 360 approach for the players. This also came with random entrance points with different tool requirements for the players. We also implemented randomized player spawn locations as well as randomized weather conditions.
*Horde meter is a system that adds more zombies into the level depending on how much noise the players generate while playing (gunshots, traps etc.)
