Game Project 4
Lymbo
Level Design, Generalist
Unreal Engine
Team of 9 People
4 Weeks
(+2 Weeks Preproduction)
Third Person, Narrative
Project Brief
Lymbo is a narrative driven experience taking place in a liminal plane between Life and the Afterlife, the player is tasked to help the people of Lymbo fulfill their last wishes so they can reach the Afterlife.
There are 4 quests with different gameplay features and surprises, each designer was responsible for one each.
The Maiden Quest
Story Brief
In this quest the player meets the Maiden, who's last wish is to "become one with nature". She tells the player she needs a certain kind of tree seed from deep in the woods, however, the woods are dark and dangerous so she tasks the player to go there for her to bring her the seed.
Gameplay
In Lymbo, the gameplay changes from quest to quest to surprise the player. In my quest, it switches to a simple form of stealth gameplay with a different camera perspective.
Camera
The camera perspective switches from third person to top down to shake things up and help with visibility of the guards' vision.
Guards
There are guards that walk between set points with vision in front of them visualised with yellow light, the player must make their way around them to progress.
Level Design
The forest level was divided into two parts, the Forest Hub and the Deep Woods area. The Forest Hub introduces the environment and Maiden character to the player, while the Deep Woods features the top down stealth gameplay areas.
Forest Hub Area
Gameplay
The quest starts in the hub, which introduces the environment to the player with a walk through the woods, leading to the Deep Woods, where the
Maiden is.
Design and Techniques
It is a linear walk along the forest path, out of bounds being blocked by invisible walls. The player starts out with heavy vegetation before having a better view revealed to them, I did this to create a funnel before reveal effect.
Environment
As it is a liminal plane created from the mind of the forest-loving Maiden, I wanted it to feel like it was a huge flourishing forest. I used a variety of trees/bushes and added a water stream to make the environment feel varied and rich. I also added a layer of fog to give of a feeling of mystery and eeriness as the quest features light horror themes.
Set Dressing Techniques
To save time on the set dressing, I decorated it through the available perspectives for the player like from the bridge as an example. As the player cannot walk outside the pathway, I used the assets to cover up dead space and give the illusion of a bigger world than there actually is.
Deep Woods, Stealth Levels
The Deep Woods is divided into 3 short stealth levels. I designed them with the intention of having low estimated length and low difficulty to not take focus away from the narrative, setting or surprises.
Stealth Levels Process
I started off with sketching ideas for level layouts on paper, it was very quick and effective as the gameplay has a top down perspective, making it easy to translate to blockouts.
Level Sketches
Arrows: Player Path
Lines and dots: Guard paths
Stars: Hiding Spots
When I had sketched all of the ideas I came up with, I moved onto blocking them out in engine. This made the levels prepared to have functionality implemented once possible and allowed me to test the distances and measurements with our player character.
Level Blockouts
Stealth Levels Finalized
First Level
The first level features simple layouts where the guards walking patterns are easy to read, the timing for sneaking past them is not at all strict either. This will help the player understand how the guards work and let them get accustomed to the camera change.
Second Level
The second level features two sets of guards, they only walk back and forth in the same spot. The player needs to cross the same guards on both sides, first across shorter distances and then longer distances. Challenging the player to wait for the right time with a little difficulty increase halfway through.
Third Level
The third level challenges the player to walk behind guards to reach a safe spot before they turn around. Making the player have to get real close to the guards for an intense finale to the stealth gameplay.
Leading the Player
The levels are designed in a way to not leave much room for confusion in navigation. There is limited paths for the player to take and the guards cover the incorrect paths. There are also trails of bushes and godrays leading into the goal in each level.
Set Dressing
Throughout the 3 levels, the environment changes. Each level features their own sets of trees, in the third level there is a mix between trees with green and orange leaves. In the end, the player finds the tree seed in a forest with only orange leaves.
Prototyping
I created a prototype version of the guards before the final version of the AI was finished by the assigned programmer. This allowed me to effectively playtest the levels earlier than otherwise possible.
Guard Prototypes
The guard looks for the player through a sphere trace in front of it. If it made contact with the player it would trigger the respawn logic.
Moving the Guard
As the prototype was a regular blueprint actor, I could not use the AI patrol points. Instead, I made it move along a spline component. I added parameters that can be set per instance to adjust how it moves along the spline, it can for example "ping pong" or loop.
Reflection
I am very happy with the game and my contribution to it, in playtests people were surprised and entertained by the gameplay switch and narrative. Though, there are definetely aspects that could have been improved.
If given more time, the main adjustment for me would be to look further into the difficulty progression in the stealth levels. In my initial playtesting, it went very smoothly but in some later playtests it seems the second stealth level was a little tricky. As the player is further away from the guards than usual, it becomes more difficult to see them and to gauge whether their vision will reach them or not. Since the guards take longer time than the other levels to turn around it also makes the player lose their patience easier than the other levels. These two factors made the second level a bigger obstacle than I had intended for, a bigger sample size in earlier playtesting could have helped to identify it sooner and allowed me to adjust the level before any set dressing had been done.
With that said, I am still very happy with this project. I feel that we managed to deliver the experience we set out to create based of the reception and reactions from our playtesters. My quest also delivered on that front despite the fact that it could also benefit from further polish.