The Power Plant is a disused distribution hub that powers and produces robots working across the city. Your mission is to discover how to escape while avoiding the corrupted Scouts at all cost.
Task & Credits
As the director and level designer, I was tasked with designing this second level from scratch. To advance the blockout’s design, in Maya, I made sure to add additional rooms for the player to explore so that their path isn’t strict and linear.
Via planning in Photoshop, and with pencil and paper, I created a more thoughtful path of exploration with enemy locations, puzzle locations, and environmental traps and hazards along it. My greybox model was imported into Unreal Engine 4, and after rounds of feedback, iterated till a final design was reached.
Play-through, with the chase sequence and UI
True frame rate in the game (filmed on a pal's better computer)
Planning
Before blocking out in Maya, I drew up some designs, firstly in Photoshop, then with pen and paper.
Initially, working in Photoshop helped because I had several references on my board that I could sketch over, and I found it easier to organise my notes. However, working like this simply wasn't jelling well with me, and I moved to using pencil and paper to develop a second iteration of the level.
The first iteration's path was far too linear, and didn't offer the player any chance of leaving their set path to explore. Also, I felt like it was rather too simple; I needed to consider enemy and puzzle locations, as well as hazards within the environment itself.
This design is much more complex, and adds layers to the power plant, above and below.
Addressing the issues in the previous iteration, there's more verticality and methods of navigation, as well as spaces purely for exploration and story context which the player can divert to.
I developed a key to mark elements like doors, elevators, ladder, enemy locations etc; I used architectural symbols or created my own, e.g. for active and non active robots.
Design development
Here's a brief run through the power plant as a work in progress!
Round 1
This is the first iteration of the level, with the very simple design.
I made sure to add sections where the player could make use of our traversal mechanic that allows them to jump between the foreground, middle ground and background.
Round 2
With feedback and criticism from my team, tutor and an industry rep, I made drastic changes. This included redesigning the start room into a locker room, as I wanted the rooms to feel 'realistic' and make sense within the space.
Next, the level was too flat, so now the player starts high up and jumps down the ladder to the centre room (verticality!) I found this effectively created a more interesting path.
Lastly, we now have a second room that allows us to introduce a scene with the Cranes, our colossus friendly robots.
Round 3
At the start, you can see I had blocked out all of the six spaces. This included adding another room, an upstairs office where the controls for the power plant will be located.
In this version, I made adjustments to the scale of assets in the space, like the giant fuel cylindrical cell in the second room, and door frames.
I also edited the camera's depth of field to test whether desired cinematic shots worked - like when you're on the second ledge on the stairs.
Round 4
The whole team missed how, in the original design, at the start of the power plant, there are pistons which introduce an element of danger that isn't just the Scouts (our enemy bots.)
Therefore, I decided to cut the locker room and edit the entryway so that you start in a employee corridor, and can jump into the engine room.
To force the player up, we planned to add a robot that will chase you to that ladder from the right.
Round 5
This is the last main edit of the power plant.
Noticeable additions included, adding the locker room back as starting in the corridor from the Outskirts didn't make sense to us, and including the basement where the main puzzle is located.
We finalised a lot of the major camera angles, and added the storage room above the office where a group of robots can run after you to build tension for the player's escape.
References
Communicating the vision for art & design for our modelling team
As director, it was also my job to develop an art bible for this level. Trying to verbalise what is needed for something as abstract as a power plant was incredibly difficult. By providing visual references, it gave us a method of communication for explaining what kind of machinery and setting I desired for each of the six spaces.
I designed the following pages so that they could be accessible for any team member; they show the greybox, an orthographic view with enemy, traversal and obstacles points marked, and an guide for the desired aesthetics.
Entryway - before & after
Centre Room - before & after
Basement - before & after
Back Office - before & after
Scout Storage - before & after
Crane Hangar- before & after
Conclusion
+ I am proud of how quickly I iterated the design for this level and, concerning the sections I had to cut, I'm glad that I was able to acknowledge and move pass my emotional attachment quickly, for the sake of moving on with the project. An example of this was the War Room, which I hoped would give more narrative context. Due to time, we closed off the door to it.
- I wish I had created more opportunities for the player to have to avoid obstacles and encounter danger like the pistons at the start. We relied heavily on the presence of the Scouts to evoke danger, but I feel like there were other missed opportunities, like boiling hot steam rising, or broken machinery falling, or dodging mechanical parts.