“A Shady Situation”

Project Overview

Quest Title: A Shady Situation

Software Used: UE5 + Blueprints, Maya, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

Team Size: Solo-Project

Genre: Third Person RPG

Game Inspiration:

  • The Outer Worlds: World Setting and Mechanics, RPG elements and color scheme representing the game’s world.

Level Design Document

Accomplishments:

  • Designed and built all levels from concept through creation

  • Designed and implemented mechanics, visual code, animations, and dialogue

  • Created the full scene using blocks and original art assets

  • Created and implemented mechanics and UI akin to those found in the game “The Outer Worlds”

  • Drafted an original story and quest that would fit into the world the game takes place in

Conceptualization & Document Drafting: (~ 5 hours)
White boxing & Scripting Blueprints: (~ 15 hours)
UI and Development: (~ 15 hours)

 

Level Playthrough

 

Interactive 3D Model

‘A Shady Situation’ Quest

Landing in a small company town nestled in the highland moors of Terra 2, Captain Hathorne has been tasked by the eccentric scientist Phineas Welles to retrieve his trademark "Science Weapon” from the Spacer’s Choice facility that operates in the area. A simple fetch quest right? Things get complicated when bandits and ambitious corporate lackeys get involved

Points of Interest

I wanted to focus on creating a quest that can be completed with a variety of approaches. I developed a layout that calls attention to stealth but gives the player the option to go loud and use environmental clues as well

The smoke from the wreckage is immediately visible after leaving the town to provide a waypoint and objective marker for the player to work towards.

Vantage Point

When the player reaches the truck, the science weapon is missing, but they notice a path of syringes leading away from the crash site. If the player follows it to the end, they reach the weapon they are looking for.

The player can take different approaches to get past enemies. Stealth to sneak around, Go loud and directly engage, or use the environment to kill multiple targets

Environmental Kill

Marauders operate on a patrol path. If you get caught, they will come after you with flailing arms and unrestrained rage

Don’t Get Caught!

Dialogue with NPCs can open up context clues for ways to complete objectives

Quest Start Blueprint

Quest Log UI Blueprint

Quest Turn In Blueprint

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Lessons Learned

Quest System & UI

For this level, I prototyped several blueprints over again to ensure that I understood how and why things worked the way they did. Every time, I improved the design of the blueprint through UI design and a greater understanding of the system as a whole. More specifically, this project reinforced the importance of macros and functions to organize and break up blueprints into more readable chunks, which were easier to digest. Additionally, during this experience, I was able to implement more visually appealing graphics to make the scripting look more gameplay friendly.

Improving Modeling Skills

I used proxy assets from a blocking asset pack and Maya models for this level. I used this project as an opportunity to significantly improve my adaptability using Maya modeling for greater modeling clarity. In doing so, I created assets that represented models and architecture that resembled the game’s world I was representing. In doing so, I was also careful to take metrics into account so that the player could traverse the game world using objects.

Pacing

Good pacing is essential for any level. Whether it’s a stealth mission or full guns blazing, the level should engage the player immediately and keep them interested in the task at hand. For this project, I broke the quest into several parts, an investigation, a search and grab, and a small dungeon crawler. I focused on not stretching out too much space to keep the player interested in the task at hand. When the task was complete, I opened a pathway for the player to quickly traverse back to the objective location so that they would not have to backtrack through the already explored area once again

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