Platformer Level Layout

For my Game Design class we were tasked with creating a level layout for a possible Platformer tutorial level. I thought it would be fun to reuse some of the assets I made over the summer for my Bazaar.

What is the conflict?

 The player has very little money and has had to steal to basically get by day to day. Today is the day they get caught. The player must navigate the streets of the bazaar and avoid the guards looking to take them to jail.

Where is it?

 On the streets of a bazaar.

What time of the year is is?

Late summer.

What time of the day is is?

Midday.

Who else lives here?
Merchants, Beggars, Guards

What does the architecture look like?

Middle Eastern / Moroccan /Arabian  

What happened to the environment prior to the player getting there?

Merchants opened shop for the day to sell their goods.

How did the player arrive in this environment? What brought them here?

The player walked into the bazaar via a street entrance. They are here to steal goods such as fruit/clothing/etc.

2D Platformer Analysis

 For my Game Design class we were tasked with analyzing a sidescrolling platforming game. The game I chose is LIMBO, a stylized puzzle platformer developed by Playdead.

The basic story of the LIMBO is that you play as a boy that awakens in a dark forest at the edge of hell. You must journey through this world and solve puzzles and try to survive.

The game is interesting because it's essentially one giant level that seamlessly blends into each other. This was particularly difficult when trying to analyze the games "tutorial" level. However, the first few minutes of gameplay are paced in a way that gives the player a chance at learning the mechanics, even if its very unforgiving and you will probably die..

In LIMBO you learn by doing. All of the puzzles/obstacles can somehow kill you. The game isn't too hard but it is very easy to die and you will have plenty of opportunity to learn from those mistakes.

The obstacles in LIMBO include such things as pull carts, rope swinging, dodging boulders, as well as many others.

As the game progresses players are introduced to increasingly difficult puzzles and enemy creatures that offer a more immediate threat than the environment itself.

Here is the level layout and he first few minutes of gameplay.

Summer Unreal 4 Environment: Bazaar

Over these past few weeks ive been teaming with friend and fellow GAD, Sarah Reynolds, on a joint environment project. Here work can be found at http://www.sarahlynnreynolds.com/. Our theme was a Bazaar of some sort. We both shared in modelling the assets in the environment. The piece is still in the work in progress stages but is extremely close to being finished.

Here is the most finalized image I have of the scene.

 

 Here is my changes throughout the process of creating the scene.

Here is a look at the individual shots from my process.

 This was my initial block out of the scene.

Here was my first pass at set dressing the scene and trying to figure out a way to tackle the ceiling structure.

 

I wasn't happy with how the ceiling was looking so I decided to remove all of the clutter and give it another try.

Here I added some overhanging cloth to give the scene a little more interest.

First color and texture pass.

Decided to up the saturation of the walls and ground stone.

First lighting pass. Basically this is where I started to try and light the scene. I changed the overall dominant directional light to bring some more sunlight into the space. I also added some bounce light from the overhanging cloth.

Point light pass. I felt the scene needed a bit more light so I started to place more lights in the scene to capture the brightness. This was also the moment when I decided to open the space up more. The hallway arch on the left was added to add some depth.

I added a few more props to the scene and amped up the saturation levels a tad. 

I decided to try and give a little separation by changing the colors of the walls and having them be different from one another. In this case a yellow wall and a orange wall.

From here I felt the space needed even more breakup so I decided to completely revamp most of the right side of the scene.

Changed the floor texture to something with a bit more interest.

Added a more realistic look to the sand on the ground.

Final saturation post process adjustment.