Level Design
DOMINIC FONTAINE
HIVE ( To be released )
Level design for level 8 : Corridor to the generator
Gameplay
Type
3rd pers. shooter action/platforming
Layout Walkthrough
2.5 min
In game
Walkthrough
12 min average
Production
Time
14 weeks
Collaborators
Level Art + modeling
+30 students of the 2019/20 Campus ADN
Game engine
Map editor
CONSTRAINTS
- Entirely made as work from home (Covid)
- 5 sections, linear layout, 2.5 min walkthrough
- Faithfully follow the blue print guidelines (RLD)
DESIGN INTENTIONS
- Create a medium to high level difficulty curve
- Balancing: combat zones (40%) platforming (60%)
- Engaging layout that suggests an ascent / verticality
CHALLENGES
- Need to decrease the length of the level
- Adaptation to a short production schedule
- Many adjustments and iterations for improvement
HIVE is an action-platforming sci-fi game created as an integrative project at Campus ADN (Spring/Summer 2020). Thirty students in level design, 3D modeling and animation joined together to produce this game in 14 weeks, exceptionally in a work from home context. I acted as a level designer and narrative designer on the game.
The player becomes Alexeï, an exo-geologist living on planet Proxima, a mining colony owned by Talium industries, an earth based company. After an extraordinary solar storm, the HIVE station is dangerously shaken. The player will have to get the power back from the generator to save his community, with the help of a determined AI.
DESIGN SPECS
COMBINE - Level 8 being the second to last level, I had to take into account that the player is used to most of the gameplay ingredients. So the constraint was to manipulate these ingredients in more complex and combined patterns.
PRACTICE - On the other hand, I had to use a new ingredient (the turret) that takes the place of a powerful enemy against the player. It was therefore necessary to offer the player the practice of a few patterns.
VERTICALITY - My intention was to make the player feel an ascension, a feeling of going higher and further. As our narrative environment was a corridor to the generator, my artistic collaborator and I used the strategy of broken and open ceilings. In this way, the linear critical path could suggest variety and novelty in the layout and level art, while remaining consistent.
