This week at FIEA

 This week I have started my next major level design project. With this project we are working with artist to create a three room level based on a IP the artist have picked. 

For me I am working with a team of artist that have picked Wizard of Oz as their chosen IP to create a three room level. 

Concept and planning 

My concept for this level is taking what the artist have come up with and expanding it. The artist concept is a version of Oz where Dorothy turned evil and took over Emerald City with the Lion being used as an attack guard. With that I took it and expanded with the the Lion becoming a boss fight and Dorothy being de throned. Hearing their concept made me think of a ruined version of Emerald city and the gameplay being souls like. 

When planning this I started with a flow chart going through the flow of the level and order of the level to display what happens and when. After that I transferred my flow chart to a 2d map of the level. In this level I have the player starting at the entrance of the city then entering the courtyard where they get their first look at the ruins and enemy encounter. The player then moves into the inner city which is a market area. In this area the player will explore with more enemy encounters and really taking in the state of the city through the environmental storytelling. The player then reaches the throne room doors which are locked so they need to explore and defeat two captains and obtain their keys. Once the door is unlocked the player will enter the throne room get locked in and begin the boss fight against the lion. After the Lion is defeated they will dethrone Dorothy. 






Development process 

This project is still in development. So far I have continued to use the Unreal Engie 5 modeling tool, cube grid, and landscape tool to create my white box. Along with those tools I have started using splines which have come in handy for doing a lot of my long winding walls. To start I used my map to reference what my areas will look like along with reference images of what the type of structures in the city look like to stay consistent with the IP. Just like my last project I have used the new methods to keep checking/feeling out the scale of my level with using Manny as a reference and constantly going into play mode and putting myself against structures and testing if it is too short or too big. 



Challenges and Solutions

So far I haven't ran into to many challenges I will expect some once I get feedback on my work in process. One challenge I did face was confusion between the artist and myself. To solve that we meet and talked about the level and concept to all get on the same page. 





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