CORRUPTION
GAME OVERVIEW
Corruption is a third-person action-adventure open-world map that features a controller similar to God Of War. The player objective is to collect 3 keys to defeat the spider boss that protects the “cursed” city. The map allows players to choose their paths, they can follow a simple path or can choose to explore and find secret passages that lead them to new areas.
DEVELOPMENT INFOS
Role - Level Designer
Time - 3 months (2022)
Team size - 5
Genre - Third-person action-adventure
Type of project - School project
Tech - Unreal 4
Platform - PC (1 players)
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
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Designing the map and the lore on paper with my team.
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Creating the initial landscape with sub-levels and putting the principal points of interest on it
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Creating the blocking of the crevice.
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Populating the map with assets and enemies.​​
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Playtesting and giving feedback on the other part of the map.
DESIGN OVERVIEW
As a team we had to build the first area of an open-world map. Our first goal was to create a lore to anchor our universe and create limits for our design.
We decided to go for a battle between an old god who prohibits magic and a new one that offers it in exchange for corrupting its user each time it’s used. The old god unleashed his wrath on the world when he saw that the majority of his people were turning to the new god for magic power.
Our adventure takes place a time after the incident, the player embodies the apostle of the old god, their mission to destroy the apostle of the new god and cleanse all the corruption in the land.
With our lore ready and approved, we started creating a basic layout and a list of points of interest that we could use on our map to guide the player (a village or a lighthouse). We also thought about how we could let the player choose their own path during their adventure.
First paper draft
After that, I created a map on illustrator to show the global layout and where the different points of interest were placed in the level. I also designed a golden path for the player.
First layout
I created 2 other maps with it, one for the difficulty and one for the next step. I also made a cut of the map to use as a sub-level in Unreal Engine 4 with the world partition.
Difficulty layout
Sub-levels layout
I also created a height map with Azgaar to give an example of the topology of the map.
Azgaar height map
I discussed with my team to validate these maps and I started creating the sub-levels on Unreal Engine 4 so we could work at the same time on the global map during the project. I began by creating 5 zones, one for each person in the team :
First sub-level path
And then I applied the topology that I created with Azgaar to create a first version of the terrain that will be the baseline for everybody. I also placed 4 big landmarks so that everyone could see directly how they could build around them.
Topologie and landmarks
Then it was time to design my part: the crevice. My intention was to create a hidden area that was packed with enemies and souls so that the player could feel rewarded if they discovered it during their playthrough. First of all, I decided to take screenshots
in-game to have a sense of scale and then draw on them to create my layout.
Drawing layout crevice #1
Drawing layout crevice #2
I made a first path with my sketches to create a fully traversable crevice with the least amount of props.
Then I made a second path to place more detail and color with props and terrain painting.
And then I placed some special props and some enemies to make the crevice more alive.
First path
Second path
Third path
This is the final result :
Final crevice
During those steps I made little adjustments to my base layout, adding one or two smaller points of interest in the crevice (like the chunk of ice in the water).
I also helped with the creation of different points of view that players will encounter during their adventure. The goal was to have moments when players could see all the major points of interest and see where they were compared to their position.
First point of view of the map
In the end we created a 30 minutes experience that looks like this :
Final map
During the project, we had team meetings every 2 weeks to see what was going on for the others and gave feedback on the work already done.
POST MORTEM
WHAT WENT WELL :
I was already familiar with Unreal Engine 4 with the help of my former project, so I was much more efficient.
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Working with my team was very enjoyable, they all brought something interesting during the project.
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We successfully built what we saw as a “large open-world zone”, we are proud of that.
WHAT DIDN'T GO WELL :
We had a lot of problems during the packaging of the project (rendering problems with texture and foliage for example). It took me 3 full days to fix all the issues.
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Because of the size of the map, each build (light or package) was a lengthy process that could take as much as 6/7 hours.
FINAL THOUGHTS :
I loved working on this project. Creating an open-world map for the first time was a good challenge and I think we produced something great even if it was not easy in the end.