Full Playthrough:
In my level design class at USC, we worked in groups to make one interconnected level. My group decided to make a brutalist museum. The section I was assigned was the gallery floor. Made in approximately 20 hours.
I also modeled all the sculpture assets (face, torso, statues) in Maya.
Project Goals and Constraints:
- Limited game mechanics: Player can only walk, jump, and look around
- Roughly one minute experience on the critical path
- Had to connect to two other designers levels
- Heavy focus on composition and art
Research and Inspirations:
I was inspired by brutalist architecture in the Soviet Union and Italy, as well as films like The Conformist.
I wanted the vibe to feel oppressive and sublime.
The circular shape of the level was particularly inspired by the Communist Party headquarters in Bulgaria (left). The giant faces featured in the level are inspired by Palazzo Braschi in fascist Italy (right).
Final Orthographic Map:
Top Down Sketch:
I wanted to make a level that meaningfully diverged from the grid, had an unconventional layout, and a huge central focal point (the torso).
Connections to Other Levels:
Highlights and Key Learnings:
Light Fixture Frames:
One of the things I'm proudest of in this level are the hanging light fixtures in the museum. Not only are they a striking visual and true to art museum lighting, they also play an important gameplay role.
The wires that affix the light fixtures to the ceiling do the job of framing key details and geometry that I want the player to see.
And because the framing device is also the primary motivated light source in the level, they're unlit. That flat graphic look gives them high contrast with the rest of the scene, drawing the players eye toward areas of higher detail.
Behind the Torso:
In early iterations of the level, there wasn't anything to see behind the torso, but the level geo allowed players to explore it. Some playtesters were disappointed to not find anything back there, so I decided to add a beating heart and entrails spilling out of the back of it.
I ended up really liking the blockmesh I made for this section, so I was a little disappointed when testers almost never explored behind it.
In earlier iterations, I put blood pools on the ground and guts peeking out from behind the torso, but it wasn't enough. Players eyes would be drawn to the bright spotlights and sculptures in the next area and ignore it.
What actually helped was adding way more lighting that reflected onto the back wall, adding more guts that had an emissive material, and, crucially, creating a doorway from fallen rubble and a path from guts. This fixed the issue.
Maybe slightly overkill.
Final Objective:
A piece of feedback I got pretty consistently was that players knew where their immediate next destination was, but they didn't know where their final goal in the level was.
Here's how I tried to address this problem:
I added a blue face that players could see once they moved past the torso. Players understood this to be a weenie/objective. But they only encountered it halfway through the level.
The issue was that the centerpiece of the level, the torso sculpture, was so huge that it blocked line of sight to the player's end goal. I could have shrunk the torso down, but I think that would have compromised the tone of the level.
In a future iteration, I might move it off center, allowing the space behind it (the face landmark) to be visible. This might come at the cost of losing some grandeur and drama, but I'd like to implement it to see how it feels.
Dynamic Traversal:
The last improvement I would want to make to the level is making the traversal more interesting in the latter half. Specifically here:
I tried to vary the traversal a little bit by adding some variation to the thickness of the player path and some rubble that the player has to jump over/duck under.
As of now, the player can basically hold forward and move through this part of the level without having to think.
Contextually, this doesn't detract too much from the overall experience. The level is extremely short and the player has interesting things to look at in this section.
However, it's a reminder for upcoming projects to think about the moment to moment experience and add as much verticality as possible.
Image Gallery:
