Cam: Vertical Slice - Layouts and Grey Box Designs

We started this week with a new process and a blank level. While some elements (the sniper tower itself) had been created for our prototype, nearly everything else would need to be from scratch. This is our first big chunk of content that we've made for the game! As the first non-prototype level we are working on, this area sets the benchmark that future areas will be compared to.

Every level starts with a top down design, detailing the areas, their general vibes, key visual elements, and important mechanics such as tutorials, cutscenes and heal triggers. In ours as well we have danger areas marked in red, with safe areas marked as blue. Grey areas are safe as well, but include enemies as visual flair.

Greyboxing begins with rough shapes and ground geography. Here you can see a top down view to compare to our design doc.

At this stage a lot of testing is done to ensure that the area is playing correctly before we add any visuals, though large visual elements such as our "ominous enemy sphere" and sniper tower are placed as they are important visual landmark. In danger areas, the main consideration is the distance between cover and the type of cover. As the enemy is always watching, adjusting cover is the main way of dictating the speed a player can safely travel through a given area.

Once the cover has all been placed and playtested, placeholder props can be placed in the level. Our goal is for the battlefield to feel like a dynamic place that has gone through centuries of battle, so the cover in these scenes is replaced with various objects. Some are intentional pieces of cover placed by combatants, and others are expedient elements that exist and have been pressed into use as cover as a matter of need. We'll also be placing other characters in these spaces, so creating areas for them within these regions is an important consideration.

Once the placeholder props are placed, I add placeholders for set dressing: things like trees, ruined structures, and all manor of war emphemera. Once placed, I add our fog and lighting effects, and add lighting as needed to the level to finish.

After I feel like everything is sitting well across the whole scene, I wrap things up and pass this chunk (this one is 2 of 3) on to Michael for another round of composition/framing, followed by first and final pass art.

I'm really happy with how this chunk turned out. Of the 3 we chose this area first due to the relative simplicity of the art/props needed for it. Even still, I feel like the constraints of a fixed camera, gameplay requirements and 2.5d art style actually empower us to focus our efforts on creating fun levels and exciting compositions. Even in this area that is largely linear I was able to find a lot of synchronous gameplay beats for a variety of play speeds, and a ton of literally awesome moments.