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Burrow Keep
- Quake level
About
Burrow Keep is a custom level created in Trenchbroom for the game Quake. The setting is a keep built into the ground in which the player must ascend from their prison cell to the balcony of the throne room.
This level focused largely on having fun/unique battle arenas and scripted fights. It also uses 2 unique level ingredients to introduce and develop across the level.
Responsibilities
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Researching player and combat metrics
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Level planning
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Sketching
- Creating block outs
- Testing and iterating
- Level logic
- Set Dressing
Planning
Before planning on the level could even start, I did research into the game I was creating a level for, Quake in this case. This involved playing the original game a lot, looking through articles, and watching videos. I also dove into the editor and created a gym where I figured out the player metrics, level logic possibilities, and enemy behaviour.
After I had a good grasp of the game, and I had the initial idea for the level I started planning out the structure. I did this by using node maps. These node maps would give a high-level overview of how the level was connected, how the player could navigate through the space, how difficult each area ws and where the secrets were.
The node graph shown here is the final version, but this graph was changed and updated throughout the process frequently to keep reflecting the direction the level was going at any specific point.
Process results
The steps of this process for one room, in this case, the library, can be seen above. The resulting room, its logic and gameplay can be seen in the video below.
Process
Reference
All areas in the level were first researched and for each space, a lot of reference images were found, These images would then be reduced until a maximum of 2 images per area remained as reference.
Paint over
For the reference images that inspired the level layout, I did paint overs to extract the useful geometry information from the pictures, which would then inform the block out.
Block out & iteration
Block outs were created to get the rough geometry in place, this would then go through playtesting where the data would be analyzed and the level iterated until the level played well.
Art & lighting pass
When the level played how I wanted it to, a lighting, geometry and texturing pass was done over the whole level. To make sure this didn't affect the gameplay another playtest was done.
4 Step level design
This level includes two unique gameplay elements that I used to make traversal and combat more interesting. These features were wooden beams that would be extended for only a short period of time after the button that was shot, and the moving platform that moves up and down based on a set interval. See the two gifs on the left for an example.
These level ingredients were taught to the player using the 4-step level design process or Kishōtenketsu. The placement of the 4 steps in the level can be seen in the adjusted node map. These features were mostly kept as moments between combat (except the last room) to make sure that the player could focus on shooting when they had to shoot and focus on thinking when they had time to think.
Scripted events
To create interesting gameplay moments my level made heavy use of the level logic available in the Trenchbroom engine. With these features, I was able to create unexpected, wave-based, and unique boss encounters.
The main tools you can use are counters and relays. I used counters to keep track of the amount of enemies killed or how many times an event had triggered, for example how many buttons are pressed in the final fight. I used relays to spawn a wave of enemies when a button is pressed and track the button that was pressed as well.
The other feature that was heavily used in my level was teleporters, I placed a lot of enemies outside the level where they would wait for the player to trigger something. At the moment of the trigger, the teleporters would activate and the enemies would spawn in the level where the player could fight them.
Iteration
The level went through multiple rounds of playtesting and iterating before getting to the final result. Iterations could include rebalancing the enemies in the encounter, changing small parts of the geometry of the level, adding or removing ammunition and health, and sometimes a completely new block out from the ground up.
The example shown on the left shows the house section of the level. This section was not liked by playtesters this was mainly caused by the explosive barrels and the 3 different layers that were not distinct enough from each other. Because players didn't like the concept of this space, the block out was removed and the process started from the beginning, doing sketching, paintovers, and then building a new block out that was tested and scored a lot better and became now more equal in enjoyment with the tower which was the intention.
The new space has a calm start where the player can look through the space and combat will only ensue when the granade launcher is picked up. I removed one floor and made the floors a lot smaller which meant players would take less time to get through this part of the level, and I chose to develop the shootable platforms in this area to make the navigation from the ground to the first floor more interesting.
Take-aways
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Spending enough time investigating the limits of a game's features in a gym is essential to great interesting gameplay moments, and for this project, I unfortunately didn’t spend enough time on this.
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Adding visuals and geometry detail to a level can make it look and feel a lot better, but this can also cause new clipping or guiding issues for the player.
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Creating spaces that can be traversed inside and outside means that making and iterations can result in redoing large parts of the level.
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Building a level that works with the game mechanics instead of against it is the best way to make a good feeling level that fits with the games playstyle.