Vicissitude - Chrome Engine
Physics based combat, puzzles and gameplay

Project Details
Role: Level Designer
Game: Half-Life 2
Engine: Source
Team Size: Solo Project

Description

A Reckoning is a single player level that is set inside of a combine waste management facility where the combine has covered up their use of toxic waste. This facility has been taken over by zombies and the combine dead bodies are spread out all over the facility.

You play Gordon Freeman who has run away from the combine into the facility to escape only to realize that you he trapped, and that freedom lies in escaping the zombie infested building.

The base perimeters I was given is have 5-10 mins of gameplay, 5-8 rooms both interior and exterior, with at least 2 significant combat encounters, and one multi-step puzzle.

Gameplay Goals

My main goal for this level was to get the player to use physics in as many ways as possible over the course of the level. Which stands true to Half-Life 2 gameplay.

Level Design Goals

Battery Physics Puzzles

I accomplished this by using what I call the insight but out of reach puzzle system. I would put the player is a room where they need to find a battery or batteries to procced to the next room. They would look for a battery and find it in a room like the image above. They noticed it but they couldn’t reach it until they stacked up boxes in the room correctly and jumped on them and got to the right height and used the physics cannon to grab it. This puzzle went through many iterations during development, and I changed a lot of based on feedback I got from my play testers and stakeholders. One of the challenges was putting them in a place away from the combat so after a combat sequence they wouldn’t be throw about in the room. This was really good food back and improved upon my original design.

Killing Enemies Using Physics

Throughout the level you use the physics cannon and saw blades to kill enemies. In the earliest part of the level, I intentionally trapped the player behind some fences and wooden boards, next to an infinite saw blade dispenser. This taught them very early on that you can use the physics cannon and saw blades to destroy objects. After that mechanic introduction the player enters another room where the heath resources can only be reached by using the same mechanic. Both built off each other until they reach the processing facility room depicted in the image above. When the player enters this room, they notice two containers next to a room full of zombies they shoot the wooden columns, and the weight of the container falls on them killing a bunch of zombies all at once. During playtesting this room change more than any other room in terms of both conveyance and geometry. I met this challenge with great enthusiasm, I constantly updated my overview map and communicated with my stake holders to achieve this challenging but fun rewarding moment for the player. 

Creating Paths Using Physics

In the beginning of the level, you see a huge container hanging above. Near the end of the level, you get to an exterior room where you are close enough to the container to shoot a saw blade at it. Across the other side of this room is the switch that you need to access to open the gate that leads to freedom from the facility and beating the level. The player uses the saw blades to destroy the wooden platform underneath the container that creates a pathway to the switch for the exit gate.

All my previous mechanics, puzzles and combat challenges built off one another that lead of to the container that you have been seeing the whole time. This was another rewarding moment for the player. This was not as easy to achieve as I thought, mainly in terms of conveyance. For starters the feedback I got from my play testers is why is there a wooden column underneath this container? They liked that it dropped but didn’t believe that they were solving a challenge. I responded to this feedback by adjusting the way the container was anchored and added wires around the container that looked as if it was holding it together. When the player destroyed it, the wires dropped and floated to the ground.

POSTMORTEM

WHAT WENT WELL

Reusing Space Interior / Exterior

I feel like I didn’t an excellent job of reusing the space. I didn’t have to create a bunch of rooms in my level. I only had 4 and one of them was a transition room where the intention was there it was a room to catch your breath. Because of this it was easy for me to create circular flow. Also, one of my rooms, the processing facility had a long staircase that went from the back of the room to the front but up one level. I added some enemies there after a stake holder suggested it. It was super quick to add, and I didn’t have to create a room or anything. I also had a solid interior and exterior space, my level felt big without it being that big.

Being Flexible and Killing My Design Babies Early

This is what helped me a ton. I was able to get more work done in less time. What I had to do was simple, listen to my stake holders and continue to communicate with them through the design process. This may sound easy but going from preproduction to production it can hard to not let things go, especially if you feel like one of those things are crucial to your design goals and level.

I feel like this is when I started to trust my stakeholders, in their feedback and just tried something new. For example, I had a great introduction to my main mechanic of destroying columns something they even agreed with however it was introduced in a very odd space. I was around a bunch of shipping containers, there was a lot of soft lock issues. After trying to fix a few times, I decided to cut it. It was a bad idea, but it didn’t add that much to the level. Getting rid of this, freed me up to focus on more important things and having the player start in front of a landmark made the conveyance of the main goal much clearer.

Physics Wow Moments

Half-Life 2 is all about physics, so I knew I had to use the physics in a way that was both challenging and fun. Early in preproduction, I created three action blocks, one of them was shooting a box that is holding up a large shipping container that has enemies’ underneath it. The player must get from one side of a level to another. They use the saw blade and physics gun, so it destroys the box, and it kills all the enemy’s underneath them and creates a path from one side of the level to the other. I expanded on that idea in my level where there was a room that houses large shipping containers and there are a bunch of enemies in a room. You can use the sawblade to destroy the wooden columns holding the shipping containers up. I made this rewarding and empowering moment more challenging buy putting some barrels around the wooden columns. During playtesting players liked this idea, but they felt as if they didn’t earn this empowering moment. Putting obstacles around the wooden columns increased the challenge and rewarded them for their efforts.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Puzzles Required More Steps to Feel Authentic and Engaging

My puzzles are there, and they have good conveyance. Yes, it can always be better, but I would say that it doesn’t really engage the player in the way I intended. My design goal for the puzzles where to get the player to use the gravity gun and the breakable wooden platforms to reach areas of the level where the batteries are placed. I framed it as a in sight but out of reach scenario. The player sees a battery and looks at their environment in a different way to figure out a way to get to the battery. Sounds great out loud. I was proud of myself, but my goal was ill defined in the since that it didn’t take into combat. See the batteries were placed in areas of the level where there would be combat like a tall wooden platform, the player shoots the wooden column, and the battery falls. However, when the player walks into the room the fight first and there are things blown up, sawblades thrown around and dead zombie parts, and the wooden column is destroyed as well, and my battery is somewhere hidden beneath all of that. I had to rethink my goals and put them is more obvious places but then it wasn’t that challenging anymore. Also, the batteries are quite small so if they are up high it can be easy to miss.

Considering Conveyance

I didn’t have a clear landmark from the start. I only started to consider what the players visual goal is after I white boxed my level. This fix isn’t hard to fix if you know what you are doing. Since this way my first level that I created completely in a level editor it was challenging. But I feel like I grew quickly and when I start on my next project the challenges that I face here will help me a ton my next go around.  Having said that vertical alignment goes a long way. Give your self more space than you need. Combat can change your intended conveyance goals quickly. It was always easier to scale down and when you start adding props that space filles up fast.

What is this space?

Over the course of development, I knew what my main three spaces where, they were a junkyard, a loading dock, and a processing facility. Bam I am done. Nope, there are more questions, questions that I thought I could fill in later. Which I guess I could, but I learned quickly that I should not have been so naïve. I asked myself a lot, is this real? But this is a game it needs to be believable not real. Will players buy into this space, does it fill lived in.

I never asked myself, what was the processing facility processing, who was processing it and why? Why are the zombies there, did that break in? If so, how? I don’t think all these questions need to be answered but I think enough do to make the space seem believable. I failed to do so and learned that this is not something to ignore. Also, I have these three spaces, but what about the spaces connecting them, the stairs, the rooms between rooms. They need to have a purpose; I should have been intentional in my design.

What I Learned

Choosing a Tool for Communication

I need to use a tool consistently that I am comfortable with to communicate with my stakeholders. After each milestone my stakeholders had some concerns that could have been quickly iterated off if I have a more flexible LDD and overview map. I made my LDD in Illustrator and in Adobe Dimensions, I was focusing way too much on polishing my idea while trying to communicate it. Less is more in this case or at least being concise is better than being in depth. I am a very detail-oriented person by nature, and this is a great thing at the appropriate time, but when it comes to writing down my ideas, I should wait till the ink is dry to come up with new ones.

I am easily inspired by new ideas constantly that isn’t the problem, I just need a new tool to manage it. I feel going forward using Adobe Illustrator is the best tool to communicate with my stakeholders, its super flexible and quick also I am very comfortable with it. If I need to think in 3D which is difficult to conceptualize a lot, I can just build out a small white box in Hammer, or Unity 3D and even Unreal Engine 4 all these tools are comfortable for me if I don’t get lost in it.

Bubble maps also go a long way, it is a form of ideating but keeping my ideas succinct. I feel like I can quickly examine the relationships between each room of the space as whole. Learning what the flow of the level will be and what will occupy that space, and how will the player engage with it.

I played my level the way I thought players would play it.

Over the course of development, I played my level the way I thought it was going to be played. But everyone is different, and some people just want to break things or have fun. I do it all to the time, so it is a nice way for me to grow as a designer. Learning form this going forward I can be much more intentional about my design decisions and make sure that there are no soft locks, which is what I spent a tremendous amount of time doing. This is something very important to fix however if I considered this at the beginning of my development it would have saved me time that I could have spent on other things like gameplay and conveyance.

Continue To Research and Play the Game throughout the Development Process

Since I had a lot of conveyance challenges, and I was starting to ask myself more questions about the space I was creating for the player to engage with I missed out on something incredibly valuable. Playing Half-Life 2! During preproduction I wrote a paper deconstructing it, how they used conveyance in their game. I should have just used a lot more of that stuff. I didn’t have to start from scratch. Also, gameplay and puzzle wise there are tons of ideas in there I might have missed or didn’t really dive into because I was looking at the game. If I replayed some of the levels that used some of the same enemies and gameplay as me, I am sure there would be a ton of things I could have just gravitated towards. There are some things you can figure out in the editor.

Gallery

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