We are now two week into development of Sky Noon. As a multiplayer fps we realize the level design will play a major role in how people experience our game. Therefore we are taking our time to quickly prototype levels to flesh out how a Sky Noon level should play.
Our first step is to open up our prototype version on Sky Noon to use BSPs to rapidly prototype levels. We set a time limit of an hour and a half and then presented our levels. Later on the Programmers added functionality to be able to easily host our new maps so we could test them in a multiplayer environment.
The results:
We learned quite a few things that will impact how we concepts levels going forward:
- Size matters – You need to keep checking distances relative to the movement capabilities of the player character
- Break line of sight – Having cover from which to spring from and to hide in is important for adding complexity to firefights.
- Tall poles – are a good design choice allowing easy vertical travel with the grapple hook.
- Multiple focal points – Having a single focal point leads to a chaotic brawl but it lacks strategy. Having multiple focal points creates separate firefights.
- Stopping Grappling – By creating slopes on the edge we can create platforms that cannot be grapple up to. These platforms require being accessed from above allowing up to control the movement somewhat.
- Loops – having paths and loops in the design on the level allows the players to feel active and can drove them around the map looking for enemies.
-Lunar Rooster