Vortex City - Third Person Shooter: Control Point
Personal Project
Role
Level Designer
Project Length
Done By
10 weeks
November 2022
Platform
Windows
Description
You have been tasked with a new mission and that is to ensure all the radio towers in Vortex City are ours. However the enemy force seems to be going for the same towers. Eliminate the enemy forces and maintain the radio towers until reinforcements can arrive.
Introduction
This game was a personal project to create a really strong set piece and I decided to do a level for my third person shooter control point game.
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What I use:
I used Unreal's Lyra Project and City Environment Megapack vol 02 in the Unreal Asset Store.
Project Details
What I did:
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Designed a city fit for the Control Point game mode
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Grey boxed my level
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Placed weapons throughout the city
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Replaced grey boxes with the city environment assets
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Utilized Lyra's Teleporter System
Project Summary
As I got into the project, I really wanted to focus on how the players navigate throughout the city to reach the control point sites. Also making sure there is a good balance of space and gameplay along with great sightlines for some awesome battles!
Design Process
My junior year of college was probably my least favorite year thus far because it's the one year where I didn't take any of my major classes because I needed to do all my Gen Eds before my senior year (thank God I did it when I could). I hardly worked on any games due to my busy schedule but I made time to create this game. When I started using Unreal, one of the many games I wanted to create was a third person shooter and once discovering the Lyra Project it made everything in my vision so much clearer. The one theme that wouldn't leave my mind is "futuristic". I love all things futuristic and I instantly knew that I wanted to implement that into the game.
Pre-Production
I knew that I wanted this to be a futuristic city so I went to look up some references online to see what I can do. I mainly looked at pictures from Cyperpunk 2077 and pictures from Japan. The reason for the Japan pictures because in some movies, they make Japan look very futuristic which is the idea I wanted to go towards. Considering I was making this a quarter project (10 weeks), I knew I didn't have much time to work on this project, so I started immediately with putting a quick collage together to understand my idea better.
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2D Design
Once I had a general idea of what I wanted, I took it to paper and started to create some sketches. I roughly made about 3 different sketches but my final one was the one I end up choosing. This map to me featured a general attraction in the middle for players to enjoy and to see it as the "middle area". Also it gives players different buildings and cover to be inside. Originally this sketch was built for TDM but was switched later on. I really tried to focus on what makes futuristic cities distinct and how could I implement that into my level?
Layout
Now that the paper design was ready, I went into Unreal to get started with the blockout. This was my first time ever grey boxing in Unreal before and it wasn't my best work at the time. However I knew what I wanted even from this picture below. I try to keep my original idea of have 6 six buildings and having them all connected with a bunch of debris in the middle for more cover to get rid of all the open space in the middle. At that time I was satisfied with the blockout so I began putting everything together.
Building/Teleporter Placement
Throughout the process of replacing the grey box with assets I noticed that it was too much open space in the city and that would destroy the player's experience. I then shifted my focus towards adding more buildings in the middle and filling in all those open gaps. Once those open spaces were filled, then I decided to take advantage of the teleporters in Lyra. I wanted alternate ways to get to certain locations in a faster way so I found a way to connect different buildings to each other. Plus it gives more ways to find weapons, health pickups, and to escape combat across the map.
Final Results
Challenges and Iterations
Challenge #1: Choosing the proper game mode for my vision
Originally my idea was to use TDM for my game mode but after looking at my blockout, I knew it had to change.
Solution: I decided to switch to Control Point just because it's better for bigger maps. When you play Control Point with three different sites, it's important to have space between them and that's why they're made for bigger maps like Vortex City
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Challenge #2: Too much space
As I mentioned before, I had too much space with my original idea and it was too obvious within my game
Solution: I simply added more buildings to fill up the space in the middle. At first the way it was set up, it look nothing like a city because of the fact it was only six buildings and a lot of open streets. When I put the new buildings in, it filled all the open gaps and provided better gameplay for my game
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Challenge #3: Blockout
This was my first time blocking out in Unreal and from my point of view was definitely my worst job ever. My map doesn't reveal anything without any clarity and thus my job as a level designer, I failed at the blockout stage.
Solution: If I could go back and tell my younger self to utilize more of the tools from Unreal, then I would! This is my reminder to myself everyday that blocking out is everything to a level designer! If my level can't explain itself without explanation, then I'm doing my job wrong as a designer.
Final Thoughts
This game was a big learning lesson for me in many different ways and as a level designer, I love creating games that challenges me. This was my first game made in Unreal and to me it did not disappoint!