The Lava is Lava
Type: Personal Project
Duration: 3 Weeks Half-Time
Description: The Lava is Lava is a 1st-person shooter level that attempts to combine the push-forward combat of Doom with the enhanced locomotion of Titanfall. The level mainly takes place across three separate islands with platforms in between. The player will have to swap timelines/realities in order to successfully platform from one island to the next.
Purpose: I knew I needed to practice scoping down a level and actually focus on making a level that “found the fun” of its mechanics. I also wanted to create a level that had me thinking lower level when it comes to design, which means I had to get the basics right.
Tools Used: Unreal 5, Blueprints, Photoshop, Miro
Concepting
The main thrust behind the concept of this level was to create a space that would successfully combine the gameplay styles of both Doom and Titanfall. Meaning I need a fusion of arena-style maps as well as fast-paced platformer elements. To start we want to go for a relatively simple arena geo. Half/full cover placement is not a significant priority as we are not looking to stop the movement flow of our enemy.
Another key aspect of the level is interfusing Titanfall’s DNA into the arena-based combat. For this, we will be implementing a “time-switch” mechanic by which the player can swap between various “timelines” each with their own separate geo. This mechanic will be required for the transportation between arenas as well as more efficiently tackling each individual arena by itself.
Whiteboxing
White boxing for the level was done through UE5’s modeling toolkit. The main focus on initial geo was accommodating the player’s increased maneuverability from Titanfall while also building out the islands to resemble Doom’s classic arena design.
Building for Titanfall’s maneuverability was mainly an exercise in testing out the mechanics in a metrics sandbox, establishing what felt/looked right, and then carrying those standards over to the level design itself.
Another key aspect of the level is the swapping of different timelines/realities as the player navigates the space. In order to keep track of the dynamic areas of the level that would phase in and out, specific coloring was delegated to these block meshes. This allows for an easy high-level view of what parts of the level persist between the two realities as well as what parts do not.
The chosen colors for dynamic level areas is pink/brown.
Major Gameplay Concepts
Enhanced Mobility/Lethality
Players have access to jumping, dashing, wall running, and automatic weapons to take down the enemy units while navigating the environment. This allows us to facilitate Doom’s push-forward combat as well as Titanfall’s enhanced mobility.
Time-Switching
The key feature of The Lava is Lava is player controlled “time-switching”. When a player uses the time-switch mechanic they will physically alter the level geometry as well as the enemies present. Using this feature is necessary for efficiently navigating throughout the level as well as surviving traversal between arenas.
Non-Linear Progression
With the focus being on maneuverability and speed, the level should not contain any dead ends. Anything that impedes the player's momentum is a detriment. With this in mind, once the player gets passed the first arena they will be locked into a loop-like layout of the remaining three arenas. Objectives will then be spawned through a mix of player location and randomness.
Level Flow
The Tutorialization
Given this is a level demo, game tutorialization is not necessarily a huge priority. I still wanted to give room for the player to become acquainted with player mechanics before really diving into the overall level loop.
Creating an impossible-to-jump gap at the start requires the player to engage with our jump/dash/and time switch mechanics.
We wrap up tutorialization with the first island. Exposing the player to the main enemy type they will be facing as well as the push forward/always moving combat style. We keep the level geo flat and clear. This is the combat equivalent of the impossible-to-jump gap and better ensures our player gets the hang of combat in a relative vacuum.
Right Arena
The right island was designed around early arena-based FPS games such as Unreal Tournament and Quake. A four-way ramp with openings on each side including the ceiling. This allows for a relatively familiar playspace for the player while slowly introducing verticality and cover via the building itself. We keep the time-switch/wall run mechanic largely absent from this space.
Left Arena
The left island is the first attempt at better fusing both the playstyles of Doom & Titanfall in an active combat space. The two halves of the floating donut rings allow for massive maneuverability while firing down on enemies. Each half also exists within its own time-space meaning the player will have to time-swap in order to complete the full loop.
Back Arena
The back island is largely experimenting with interior spaces along with classic arena-based designs. It currently acts as a middle ground between the left/right arena in terms of difficulty. The tunnels offer chokepoints/cover, but also limits maneuverability cutting off a major toolset to the player.
Upping the Intensity
As the level progresses enemy spawners (the pentagrams shown left) will appear more frequently as well as simultaneously on different islands. This creates time pressure as the spawners will keep spawning until the player gets onto the island to address the threat. This gives the level a natural ramp in combat as the player will be tasked with more and more enemies. This ramp also carries over to our increased maneuverability as the player will need to become more proficient in traversal to handle the spawners in time.
Closing Thoughts
The level is at a good start but the shooting mechanics and the traversal mechanics have not quite homogenized to the level that I would like. With this in mind, the next steps are to create two enemy variants, a charger, and a flyer. With a trio of enemies, this gives the level enough enemy mechanics to meaningfully design around, giving the level room to really fuse both the fast twitch gunplay of Doom with the maneuverability of Titanfall.
This will also mean further developing the level geometry to accommodate the new enemy types. With four islands and three enemy types, we have room to focus on an island per enemy type, leaving the fourth island to combine all three enemy mechanics into one.
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