"Adrenalyn is a 3D third-person shooter with fast pace combat built in Unreal Engine 4 where the player picked up upgrades that changes the behavior of the gun throughout the level and stack the upgrades together to create a unique gun"
My Role
As a group of AAA fanatics, we decided to make a 3D Third Person Shooter where the player collects upgrades throughout the game and stack them together to create a unique weapon. The duration of the project was 4 months. I was tasked with level design because I am very passionate about it and I am one of the strongest level designers in the class. I am also one of the core programmer of the team due to my knowledge of coding I acquired from my computer science degree. However, at the end, I picked up many different responsibilities to help the project move forward.
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- Designed and implemented 60 Encounters Rooms from level layout to set dressing. Also working with artists to come up with props to populate the level.
- Programmed and balanced 40 stacking upgrades and work with the technical artist to implement particles for the upgrades as well as making sure they look good when they stack together.
- Designed and implemented tools for artists to help them to be more efficient on creating assets.
- Managed the task list on Pivotal to prioritized tasks in order to meet deadline.
- Help the team on many different game areas such as UI/UX, Combat, Tools, Player control, Main character locomotion, and QA.
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Challenge
The most important thing I learnt from building so many levels for the game is the importance of framing an encounter so the player understand within the few seconds after entering a room. They player should know what they are facing and make decisions based on that understanding.
That’s take the example on the left. As you can see when the player enters the room the see both the lobber which will shoot at the player the second they entered the room and also the spider on the left which will walk to the player. The player did not have time to react to the lobber and the spider at the same time. And when they take damage this way they feel cheated.
On the other hand, this encounter is well framed. When the player enters the room they see a sentry with shield and also the passage on the right to get around the sentry. Within a few second the player knows what they should do.
Another challenge is the direction of the room. When we are doing playtest some player will get lost and cannot find the door. To solve this problem we added light and props to guide the player through the level.
The example on the right is a bad example. The room is very symmetry. The player might be able to figure out the direction when they first walk in, but after an intense fight with the enemies the player will sometimes lost the sense of direction in the room.
Although this room is also symmetric. However, the spot light on top of the door and two golden statue draws player’s eye to the door.