SET SAIL!
ROLES
Lead Level Designer and Narrative Designer
DESCRIPTION
SET SAIL! is my final year project.
This game is a 4 player couch play experience inspired by Overcooked and the Lego games.
The players take the role of pirates.
What I Did
This game I am responsible for making the majority of levels and making sure those levels fit the games vision and reinforce the gameplay by keeping that fun experience.
Within every level I made I also planned and placed mechanics, AI, interactions and more. I did the lighting and post process in all the levels.
As well as making level sequences and cinematic to make the gameplay feel seamless and have a flow that we can change at certain points in the experience to change up the pacing
YEAR
2022 - 2023
GENRE
Party Couch Play
THEMES
Fun, Chaotic, Teamwork and Pirates!
PLATFORM
PC - With controller support
LEVEL DESIGN
The Puzzle level
This level was designed with the intention of allowing players to have a pirate adventure. This level has two sections to it, one being the jungle area, which has multiple paths that the player can take giving players opportunities to explore the level how they like.
The top area is filed with booby traps and players can be ambushed by the jungle people. The players objective in this area is two find the missing pressure plates which opens the door to a cave, which leads deep below the island. The reason behind the pressure plates being an easy objective for the players is because I wanted to teach the players this new mechanic before I make it more challenging.
Dungeon
This part of the puzzle level is the dungeon section. The intentions of this level was to play and feel like a dungeon crawler with narrow spaces making the combat which is fairly easy much harder with the players being confined to narrow corridors. The inspiration for the layout was from 'Minecraft: dungeons' and Christopher Totten, with how they use certain spaces to build the tension that leads to a boss fight
This level also has a puzzle that the player have to solve, this puzzle includes the pressure plate mechanic in the jungle area which the players have already been taught.
When the players solve this puzzle they open the large doors which leads to the boss room.
Research &Planning
Click on Images to view in full
Boss Cinematic
Below is one of the cinematic I made for the game. This is for when the players enters the much anticipated boss room on the puzzle level. I wanted to create a grand feeling like something epic is happening.
The placement of this cinematic was to change the pace from the chaotic puzzle room to the boss room. The music is from Elden Ring (I did not make it) but it acted as a place holder for when are musician makes the music for the boss. (P.S the animations were taken from an asset back so looks a bit odd when used here.)
The Hub Rework
This level I made is the Hub level, which is a rework of one I made in the early stages of development. The Hub level is where the players can customise their character, ships and weapons at designated shops. The Hub has lots of interaction ranging from quest boards, characters and more.
Before the Rework
Overview
This is the first version of the Hub, I wanted to create a space which houses all of the features needed in the Hub, whilst having a fixed camera.
I found that this level didn't play how I planned it to, the majority of feedback was telling me the camera is too far away from the players and everything is too compact, with not much information being told to the player. The lack of space cause some issues with exploring this level
What needed to changes
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The level needed to not have fixed camera for the whole level.
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It needed more than one room, to allow the players to explore
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Make the shops more clearer and better placed.
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Have the level feel more lived in, instead of a bland lifeless cave
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Keep the level fun, as its the main pillar of gameplay. By having more interactions.
Research & Planning
For research I did Flow charts and Contextual research to get Inspiration. I also made multiple sketches to plan out the level layout to make sure all the mechanics present in this level.
Whitebox
Level Layout and plan
The Whitebox version was to test the camera angle and the size of the level, also making sure it was playable. This was the basic foundation to the level.
Prototype
First few iterations
This stage of development I was getting the core foundations for the level down first, this included the size of the level, where the shops were and how to access the second level. I also added some basic lighting and assets to translate the emotions this space was trying to create. I moved the stairs from the middle to create more space and added elevators on the left and right side of the tavern to create a better flow in the centre point of the level
Final
This was the last and final version of this level, with the exploration of the surrounding shanties, the functional docks where the player enters and exits the level and the lived in tavern. I decided that the shops would be better outside of the tavern, to create more space inside.
Final version of this level
Overview
What Worked:
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The exploration side to the level worked as planned it had many interactions and lots of hidden chest as well narrative spaces which tell a deeper story to the level.
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The tavern area did its job of having the key mechanic of choosing which side to pick. Each side was shown to the player and made it easy to understand
What could be improved:
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The level was made fast and in a short amount of time, I would've liked to have had more interactions in the shanty area of the level and have mini games to create a more fun and engaging experience .
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More signposting would've made the level easier navigate.
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Make the level involve all the players as a collective to expand more on the teamwork side of the game. This could've been done by having a puzzle to open a section of the level, this would create more communication.