Dragon Age

So after almost a year of my wife telling me I should play dragon age I got it off steam yesterday and figured id give it a decent go.
I had played it briefly before as a mage character using my wife's copy but for some reason it didnt appeal to me.
I created a combat rogue and so far am having a lot of fun with it, it sucked up about 8 hrs of my day yesterday :P
I still cant get over how awesome the graphics are in it I love the visual art style and all the outdoor landscapes and structures are beautiful.
It's given me some inspiration and I think my next map after Elevator Evacuation is going to be an outdoor fantasy environment in UDK where i'm thinking I might make a bunch of fantasy props myself to get my skills up in 3d studio max again.

But in the meantime my gears of war level is coming along pretty well. Ive fully blocked out the first encounter and despite a few cover glitchs it seems to be working well. I will post up some gameplay footage of this area in the next few days when i've ironed out a few bugs and can drag myself away from dragon age :P.

Long as I keep telling myself im playing dragon age for level design research its ok ;)

Elevator Evacuation progress update

Just thought id post an update to let you guys know what i've been up to and how my gears of war level is coming along. (All 4 of you who actually follow my blog lol)

To start of with I have updated my CV. I felt that it was a bit cluttered before so I've reworked it a bit to make it more concise and to the point. Hopefully this will pay off and get me some response :).

I've also started working on the first street area of my gears of war level.
Ive done basic grey box for the first street area and started working in kismet to get Dom to spawn and the first set of enemies when the player moves forward into a trigger.
I'm finding the initial planning I did and maps very helpful however from some basic testing I think ill have to move a few cars and other cover points around as I'm finding at the moment there is way to much cover making it very easy to take out the boomer and the 4 locust drones with minimal risk.

I think the biggest obstacle at the moment is the lack of information and tutorials on the net about Unreal editor for gears of war.
I've found the following two sets of tutorials helpful for basic things like setting up exploding propane tanks and setting up a basic matinee sequence.
I'll post the links below in case anyone else is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCnWppj6i28 (This tutorial has 3 parts and goes into brief details on how to set up a few basic things)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Shaffizlee#p/a/u/1/cOQEAQ1sfDo (basic matinee sequence in GOW)

Anyway here are a few basic screen shots of the level so far.

Gears of War editor Is GOOOOOO

with the level design document for my gears of war level "Elevator Evacuation" now complete (A link to it can be found Here in case anyone is interested). I finally get to open up the gears of war editor and start work on this bad boy, Im Really excited :)

Learning from my mistakes on my last map DM-waterfall where I progressed through the blue box stage too fast resulting in a few gameplay issues like long boring corridors and epicly tall stair cases, On this map Im going to get the entire map blue boxed, complete with all enemies, gameplay and matinee sequences completely done and thoroughly tested by myself and anyone else I can wrangle into giving it a go before I even think of making the level pretty.

Anyway stay tuned for some exciting updates over the next week.

Elevator Evacuation Gameplay Maps

Its 3:25 am and Im off to bed after a night of updating the gameplay maps for my level :)
Figured Id post them up here before I headed off.

I feel the level is coming along really well. I'm sure there will be a few minor tweaks to gameplay design as I begin construction but that's always the way with any design process
Iteration Iteration Iteration :)

Any feedback would be highly appreciated

Legend of the guardians the owls of Gahoole is out

Also Legend of the Guardians the Owl's of Gahoole is finally out On PS3 xbox 360 and Wii in US and Canada Im very excited about this seeing as its the first Game I worked on as a level designer :)


Havent made a post for a few days as I've been a little busy as I got some shifts at work this week.
Anyway Ive still been keeping busy I just started re-reading A theory of fun Game design. Forgot how inspiring it was. Ive also been doing a bit of research into MMO development. and found an editor called Multiverse that lets you create and run an MMO (Albeit looks like the graphics engine is pretty simple) but still might be good to make an mmo prototype down the track as mmo's have always been my favorite type of game and Ive always wanted to try out some designs :).

Besides that I have been re-working my website to make it more user friendly. I'll probably upload the updated version of it within the next week once I have finalized the design document for Elevator Evacuation.

Anyway here is the link for the Theory of fun book Id recommend it to anyone who is interested in game or level design :)

Here

Elevator Evacuation Level Maps

Ive done a bit more work on my gears of war level and done basic first pass of the level maps. they still need a lot more detail like props and more exciting rooms.

Ill also be doing gameplay flow versions of these maps with enemies and encounters on them as well.

any feed back would be great :)

In section A the player starts on a road then must travel up a small set of steps into the building courtyard to take out the enemies who are guarding the entrance with a Troika Turret.



Upon entering the building lobby the player finds that the stairs up are blocked and they must take the elevator, however as there is no power the player must venture down the stairs and turn on the back up generator before they can take the elevator.


Upon getting in the elevator the player ascends only to be interupted on floor 10 by a group of drones.
After these drones have been defeated the player continues to the top floor where they have a boss fight with a beserker.
Im still trying to work out a way to make the boss fight area more interesting.

Gears of War Level update: Elevator Evacuation!

So ive been busy working on the level design document for my gears of war level which I have entitled "Elevator Evacuation" for now seeing as I can't think of anything else :P

The document is pretty much complete except for the proper top down maps which I have only sketched up on paper and have yet to make proper photo shop or illustrator versions of.

Its been fun and sometimes tedious experience doing up this level design document as I enjoy writing it up but at the same time i'm just itching to get into the editor and get my hands dirty.
The document is currently 30 pages long and has a lot of reference images etc most of them being from gears of war itself taken with fraps.

anyway to tell you a bit about the level itself, as you know its a single player map for gears of war.
In this mission the player who is playing marcus awakes in a war torn street after his armadillo transport vehicle was ambushed, Only him and Dom survive out of his 10 man COG unit, Finding himself outnumbered deep in locust controlled territory the mission is to get to the top of a locust guarded building for helicopter evacuation, however the player is confronted with several obstacles along the way such as.

1. A locust drone defense post with a mounted turret guarding the entrance to the building
2. Upon entering the building lobby they find the stair case upwards has been blocked with debris (my secret revenge on stairs dam I hate them :P) with no other way to get to the roof the players have to take the rickity old elevator, however the power to the building has been cut so they must venture downstairs into the basement to turn it on and take out some pesky wretches along the way.
3. With the elevator working the doors open revealling dead cog members not a good sign of whats to come, Either way the player activates the elevator and heads to the top floor of the building. However they are ambushed when a group of locusts interupt there ascent when the elevator stops halfway on a floor and are greeted by a group of locust drones who promptly open fire upon the unsuspecting COG members
4. After the Player has defeated the enemies by either using existing cover in the elevator or diving out to seek alternative cover methods they continue there journey to the top floor only to be greeted by a Beserker, The player without the Hammer of Dawn must find a way to defeat this seemingly impossible opponent, Through clever positioning the player can force the berserker to charge through the main glass door on this level causing it to fall off the side of the 20th story building to its death.
5. Having defeated the berserker the king raven rescue helicopter lands and the mission is a success

Im hoping to get the maps done in the next day or so and the basic blue box of the level well and truely blocked out by the end of the week.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Update on Gears of War Project

Since my last blog I have spent a lot of time researching level design documents and have began writing mine up for my new level.

I have a basic map layout split up into 3 parts and the level design document well under way. Its shaping up to be a really cool level with a fair bit of scripting and a few cutscenes. Kinda worrying as its shaping up to be a lot bigger than my last DM-Waterfall project which is a bit daunting but I think If I put the effort in it should turn out alright :)

I also think that having a professional level design document to add on my portfolio will help as ive noticed a lot of positions requesting examples of documentation.

Anyway Stay tuned next blog I will be able to give more details on what level is about and maybe even include some overhead map sketches :)

Gears of War Fun

So I finally got a copy of Gears of war off ebay woot.

Ive started mucking around with the editor. Feels a bit gimped seeing as im so used to using UDK the last few months. But im getting hang of it
Major thing that seems annoying is trying to find props that are in packages. Which means I have to just keep loading random packages trying to find props.

I think after tonite and tommorow of mucking around with spawners etc I will be ready to start making a a basic single player level.

will probably start by making up a basic level design document and going from there.
My aim is to create a short single player game play experience including small cutscenes, audio and various kismet events.