Introduction

Secondary quest for a fantasy, open-world action RPG game with souls-like combat inspired by The Witcher.

I aimed to create a mission that would be memorable for players, unveiling a depth not initially expected and weaving an intriguing narrative.

Project details

• Personal project
• Developed in 1 week
• Unreal Engine 5
• Action RPG
• 3rd person
• Semi-linear

M

I’ve always wanted to design a secondary mission inspired by The Witcher with action RPG combat similar to Dark Souls.

I also aimed to create a mission that would be memorable for players, unveiling a depth not initially expected and weaving an intriguing narrative.

Contact

email@domain.com

000-000-000

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References

I gathered references for landmarks, points of interest (POIs), exterior spaces, rooms, and items. These are not only meant to be used as reference material but also as a source of inspiration.

After several layout iterations, I created a one-pager to showcase a solid foundation to build upon and define the scope for a week's workload.

Finding the mood

I started adjusting the lights, skybox, post-processing effects, and fog to achieve the desired mood.

Also created materials, modeled and downloaded a short amount of assets, and built a gym to get the metrics right. Finally, I built a rough 3D mock-up to create a basic skeleton and get the right room sizes and connections.

Combat spaces

Each of the combat spaces is different to encourage adopting diverse strategies. There are areas with vantage points, situations that promote stealth, elements strategically placed to play cat-and-mouse game, etc.

My objective is to encourage players to diversify their gameplay, always ensuring there is enough room for both comfortable player and camera movement.

Scripting

I implemented scripts with blueprints, including texts for conversations and letters, enemy triggers, swapping music during combat encounters, looting, and interactions with buttons and movable elements.

The logic of each element is self-contained, with references to the objects to interact with. The player maintains a dynamic list of available entities that can be interacted with.

The layout is semi-linear. The points of interest have exploration beats where the player is rewarded with loot or story segments that help expand information about the puppeteer and his situation.

The hub serves as a connection point between different areas of the cave, encouraging player familiarity with the space and creating a greater level cohesion. Coming from the hub, the player’s path should be curiosity-driven, choosing the path that most captures their attention.

Initially, this project was set to be completed in two weeks during my free time, after my full-time job. However, it took me a week of experimentation, several one-pagers, and two blockouts to develop a story and concept interesting enough. Despite the rough start, I am quite pleased with the outcome.

If I had more time, I would work on making the hub-sanctuary and prison-crypt connections more interesting and larger because, after populating the areas, I feel that the transition between these rooms may be too abrupt. Also, the skulls in the grave room are crucial for defining the theme, but I had to reduce the number of entities for performance reasons, so I would like to explore alternatives to decrease the number of objects.

Prototyping enemy behaviors and implementing simple combat would enhance the experience and ensure 100% that the spaces feel good. For the dungeon hub, I would like to make the ceiling more vertical to give a more spectacular first impression.

Fran Ruiz - Level Design

Introduction

Project details

M

Contact

Preproduction

References

Blockout

Finding the mood

I started adjusting the lights, skybox, post-processing effects, and fog to achieve the desired mood.

Also created materials, modeled and downloaded a short amount of assets, and built a gym to get the metrics right. Finally, I built a rough 3D mock-up to create a basic skeleton and get the right room sizes and connections.

Combat spaces

Each of the combat spaces is different to encourage adopting diverse strategies. There are areas with vantage points, situations that promote stealth, elements strategically placed to play cat-and-mouse game, etc.

My objective is to encourage players to diversify their gameplay, always ensuring there is enough room for both comfortable player and camera movement.

Scripting

I implemented scripts with blueprints, including texts for conversations and letters, enemy triggers, swapping music during combat encounters, looting, and interactions with buttons and movable elements.

Layout overview

The layout is semi-linear. The points of interest have exploration beats where the player is rewarded with loot or story segments that help expand information about the puppeteer and his situation.

The hub serves as a connection point between different areas of the cave, encouraging player familiarity with the space and creating a greater level cohesion. Coming from the hub, the player’s path should be curiosity-driven, choosing the path that most captures their attention.

Flowchat

Intensity chart

Narrative pacing

Combat pacing

Walkthrough

Closing thoughts

Prototyping enemy behaviors and implementing simple combat would enhance the experience and ensure 100% that the spaces feel good. For the dungeon hub, I would like to make the ceiling more vertical to give a more spectacular first impression.

Thank you for reading!