Professional Work
Individual Projects
Team Game Projects
Project: City 7 Duration: 6 months; completed March 2007
Role: Level Designer/ World Object Builder Engine: Half-Life 2
Downloads: City 7 bsp (place into hl2 maps folder) HalfLife 2 and Lost Coast are needed to play
Description:
City 7 is a map I'm currently working on in Hammer. I am working on it as a a part of my thesis project studying a players need for both good graphics and gameplay. My thesis is to complete 2 maps, one with good gameplay and one with good graphics, and to survey a variety of fps players and assess the results. I am hoping to find that though gameplay is more important to most players, there is still a need for graphics to fit the style of play. My dfs, City 7, is a merging of the 2 thesis maps that fits into the Half-Life 2 game. So far I have created 2 world objects including a dryer and toilet paper roll for the apartment section (neither of which are in the HL2 package).
I created City 7 in five months for my directed focus study. As Gordon Freeman, the player needed to reach a small prison inside the city to free some key rebel prisoners. Working with Half-Life 2 I produced three specific areas for the player to travel though. The cliff-side area was filled with jumping puzzles and Manhack combat sequences of increasing difficulty. After jumping and dodging their way up the cliff, the players would then enter the apartment complex. The apartments served as a transitional area between the cliff and street areas including changing lighting, enemies, and ramping action. I used lighting and sound here to pull the player through the apartment and into the street. The street area was open with multiple ways to explore and dispatch the combine soldiers. Strong lighting and an easily recognized path brought the player back to her objective and to the final battle sequence. The player gained control of the combine turret once controlled by the enemy and had to fight of waves of enemies from the ground, air, and surrounding balconies. I loved building the different areas out of BSP and displacement surfaces to create a realistic and fun environment. The biggest challenge was tweaking the jumping puzzles and AI behavior, but with continuous testing and feedback the level turned out fun and stunning. I learned that overcoming hurdles like this makes level design an always exciting and challenging experience.
