Blueprint

The objectives:

1) Find the ship

2) Find the weapon stash

3) Find the base

4) Get past the diving team

5) Get through the airlock

asset list

plants and shit

These are the types of plants needed in my level, I want some of the to be bioluminescent.

playing with unity

as the title suggests I've been playing with unity over the last couple of days and have figured out how to get my map to look as though it is actually underwater. First i used a mat blue skybox for two reasons; it is damn near impossible to find a underwater image that will work as a skybox and because it looks really good how i have it. Next i used basically the same colour fog as the skybox and put it on pretty thick, this dose wonders for the visibility and with the right tinge it works really well.

The next part was a little tricky but i did it and it really makes the map so far. I used a particle emitter on the main camera and set it so the particles just float and i made the ellipsoid longer along the X so that the particles are spawn far in front of the player.I then put a spot light on the main camera to give the added feel of being inside a diving suit. Next I made my own dust spec in photoshop and made a alpha channel so it would appear round in unity and i made the texture for the particles self illuminating so that they are dark when far away but when you get closer they react to the light and light up as they would in real life.

I'm very happy with the result and cant wait to now make the map and model the base and ship and various plants.

more ideas

hey all I've been thinking more about some mission objectives and game mechanics for my map.

here are some new ideas;

ive decided that the player will start off with no weapon.

im thinking of having a sunken ship that is close to the location of the base, it was a military ship that is bound to have weapons sealed inside. therefore the first two mission objectives would be;

To find the ship which will show the player the direction of the base.

find the weapon stash in the ship.

The nest objective would be to find the base.

Next the player will have to either sneak past a group of navy divers, or kill them quietly as to not get caught.

the last objective is to find the key to activate the airlock, and then its on to the nest mission.

The game mechanics i have used are;

stealth

action

discovery

i have been thinking about the objectives for my level. some ideas i have are:
finding the base; i see this a lot in games and it gives the player a sense of discovery.
infultrating the base without being noticed

these are some sketches for my map. the basic idea is the player is finding his way through the underwater passage to the underwater base.

At the moment I'm leaning heavily towards having the player on the outside of the underwater base i just think its a stronger feeling then being inside the structure. here are some more pictures to explain what i want to get across.

some reference pics.

My level

for my level I'm going to design a level that is probably my favourite out of the ones i have conceived. The level is the first time the player gets to the underwater base and must infiltrate it. I think this level will best portray the emotions i want the player to get out of the game.

I'm still sticking with my original idea of the spirit that can take hold of any person and my crazy idea of trying to tie it in with an underwater theme but... with this next passage of writing it will no longer be insane but hopefully a clear and concise game idea.

Back story

Matt the main character wakes up on a beach he finds his way back to civilisation but soon finds out he is not quite himself. He then tries to find out what happened to him using a new found ability; body possessing. The long and action packed search leads him to an underwater test facility where my level will be based.

character profiles

Matt's story is told throughout the game, due to his both loss of memory and conscious fusion with the memories of a man called Henisey. once the thoughts are untangle throughout the game, Matt is revealed to be a test patient for a teleportation experiment in-which his conscious being was separated from his physical body.

Henisey's part in the plot is somewhat of a storyteller in the game, he is the body that the player starts out in. the story telling is done through flashbacks from Henisey's memories.

Henisey was one of the chief scientists on the project who was not confident with testing the project. after an argument with colonel Hopps he is shot just before the test. he survives the shot but lies on the verge of death in the ocean where matt enters his body in his weakened state when the test malfunctions separates his body and mind.

Colonel Hopps is the basic villian so far. He is only interested in getting results and will kill to hide his mistakes. i will further his profile in the next few posts.

I wont go on about three new games to compare for the different genre question. So pac man is a big maze where you go around eating things but you don't want to get eaten by something else. Very simple the reward is points and the next level and the risk is death and the level is design the way it is so that the player can trap themselves if they are not careful. sonic i have already told how the levels are very linear for speed sake and like pac man the reward is the next level and the risk is death. halo is much the same like most games are much the same the reward is the next level and the risk is death and there are just little variations on that in general. The games genre changes the level design in the sense of what it is a shooter needs cover a side scroller needs platforms and so on.

OK three games i looked at were pac man, sonic and halo, they were quite different i can tell you that much. Pac man every one has at least seen it very simple your in a maze of sorts, so the level design is simple in that sense. You can see the whole stage area and you just roam it doing what needs to be done. Sonic compared to pac man is quite advanced, it a very fast side scrolling game. The stage is designed very linear to take advantage of the speed the game could move at, this such as gravity and speed meant the levels had more obstacles for the designers to play with such as holes, jumps and loops. Halo is obviously a FPS so the level is designed like most shooters to have cover and places to hide from fire and also has big open spaces for where vehicles are used.

ok lets back track to the first questions my bad. So if i was a level designer in the 80s i would have to say i would do 2d side scroller because they were the big thing then and you would have been stupid not to.