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Development Time: 10 weeks Tools Used: Unreal Engine, Lyra game kit Role on Project: Level Design Date of Development: November 2022 hitman lyra mod
Pre-Production
The concept for this game was to create a stealth game using the Lyra
game kit created by Epic. The initial design was a game that had strong
stealth elements and limited resources forcing the player to make
stratigic meaningful gameplay decisions. Games like I Am Alive, Last of
Us, and Splinter Cell.
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Initial Design
This was a project that I worked on for a game modification class
while at DePaul University. The idea was to create a stealth based
game from the Lyra game pack created by Epic. I worked within the
level design team and designed the concept of the three lane
approach to create an easy, medium, hard path for the player to
choose how they would like to complete the level.
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Each path offered the player a different option on how to play. The
left lane was a high visibility lane that offered more rewards and
ammunition if the player chose to explore that path, while the
middle lane was easier but offered less rewards and opportunities to
find items.
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Blockout
The team also decided to make the level multi-layered so that the player had
different options for each lane as well. With different difficulties for
each of the lanes they branched off of. If the player felt they got in too
deep on one lane they could switch to a different lane, or if they didn’t
feel challenged enough they could take an alley and spike up the difficulty
for themself.
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Here you can see how the map was changed and how each of the lanes was
reduced in size to make each lane feel and play more confined.
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This is a final blockout of the street level part of the map. The
enemies and cameras were added in to give playtesters the ability to
sneak through the level and test enemy and camera placements.
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Gameplay Elements
Enemies were able to change their status based on whether or not they
decided to sneak through the level or run through gun blazing. The
player was given limited ammunition to encourage them to be more
stealthy.
Pictured right: is the enemy status system. The player is able to alert enemies if they make too much noise.
Pictured right: is the enemy status system. The player is able to alert enemies if they make too much noise.
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The enviroment was designed to complimented the abilities the player had
available to them. Enemies were set at specific vantage points to
encourage more stealth from the player.
Pictured right: The player used their cloaking ability to sneak past one of the stationed enemies.
Pictured right: The player used their cloaking ability to sneak past one of the stationed enemies.
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Post-Mortem
A huge take away from the project for me was how much mission and objective
design can become an interitive process. The level can change from the
inital design to a finished product drastically from team and player
feedback. I noticed how players in the play test would pick up on certain
mechanics built in or ignore other designs. Then find creative solutions to
get through obsticles/puzzles which also affected the final design of the
level.
Overall I think this project taught me how much of an iterative process level development really was. Player's ingenuity gave me the opportunity to create new solutions for the gaps that they would find in the tested design. Taking player feedback and going back to the drawing board with the data we received we were able to focus on routing the player and control their options, this was key in the iterative process.
Overall I think this project taught me how much of an iterative process level development really was. Player's ingenuity gave me the opportunity to create new solutions for the gaps that they would find in the tested design. Taking player feedback and going back to the drawing board with the data we received we were able to focus on routing the player and control their options, this was key in the iterative process.
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