To better understand newly learned level design practices, pre-made assets/frameworks were used to speed up prototyping and allowed me to prioritize the design process.
Project Overview
What I learned From My Study_
For my third-year level design course,
we were tasked with recreating a level and/or environment from any video
game title of our choosing within the course of a semester.
I chose
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
as a reference for my study as it was always a goal of mine to
better understand the game's level design process.
Using the Dueling Peaks area as inspiration, I looked to recreate the
gameplay experience and environment within Unity, with the overarching goal
to get as close to the original title as possible.
By emulating the game's traversal systems, mechanics and visuals, we can get
a better sense of the newly created environment within the context of the
original game's experiential goals.
The design process for the level spanned the course of a semester, while the
in-engine development/construction of the demo was completed in less than 24
hours using asset packages and pre-made frameworks.
Roles: Sole Developer
Team Size: Solo Project
Timeline: 1 Semester
Course: Level Design 3: Applications of Level
Design
Tools:
- Unity
- Blender
- Photoshop
Licensed Assets:
Gameplay showcase of the demo build alongside work-in-progress footage.
Post Mortem & Level Design Document
At the start of the design process, I
had planned to recreate as many mechanics as possible from Zelda:
BOTW to be able to really experience the new environment in the same
spirit of its inspiration.
Breath of The Wild's environment and level design center around the
traversal mechanics and different gameplay systems like stamina and dynamic
weather.
My design goal was to emulate that design process, which meant that I should
look to include as many of these mechanics and systems into my demo, as
outlined in my Level Design Document.
This ambitiousness was the primary crux, as the scope of this demo with
everything I planned on including was not possible given my timeframe.
With that, I looked to implement the core traversal methods of walking,
climbing and gliding, as BOTW's heavy emphasis on exploration was key to the
design.
My new goal was to capture the sense of scale and
openness of the game's environment
,
having players feel immersed and ready to explore.
Heavy emphasis on Exploration and Scale.