Initial Development
I had original thought to produce a very organic flowing map based on an environment made of sweets and chocolate, this changed soon after this quick concept. It then changed to become a level based upon flowing down a canyon in a raft, but having realised I couldn't apply any puzzles or a great deal of kismet to it I decided to resort to a more traditional FPS style level. I have looked in to developing the landscape around desert terrain and canyon like cliff faces, so I am looking to enclose the level through a combination of these two extremes.
After iterating level concepts in UDK I came up with a level that doesn't look much like the concept above, it had to drastically change from the initial concept to work as a first person exploration game. After coming up with a basic level in UDK that I had reviewed half way through the module, I was told to make it more 'exciting' and give more challenge to the player and to incorporate more Kismet based events.
Here are a number of screenshots from the initial UDK level, unfortunately I didn't take a great deal of top down photos of the completed map and my packages have all become broken trying to rename/restructure the packages for professionalism.
I produced a new blockmap in my sketchbook to work from, creating a new level from scratch but now with the existing knowledge of my previous endeavour.
Sketches of gameplay ideas
This sketch shows the idea of the player platform hopping across a steep drop from a cliff edge, the stacks get smaller to the other side to 'ease' the player in to the concept of platforming in first person.
This sketch looks in to a later part of the level which unfortunately I didn't have time to complete, It was where I would tie-in the architecture module assets from XB2002 with the organic landscape that floods the level.
Again, this sketch also relates to a later puzzle which I didn't have time to create. It was an expansion on the simple puzzle I have incorporated already in to the level, but it involves translating the symbol seen on the wall with the 3D cylinder which rotates within the wall.
This section looks at the player entering the tomb section of the level, here the player would put all of what they have learned up to this point to the test. The tomb is a time based event, when triggered the player has X amount of time to complete the series of challenges. They include navigating the narrow corridor, solving two slightly more complex wall/cylinder puzzles (to stop the axes and open the main tomb door) and on entering completing a four-tiered cylindrical puzzle using the adjacent obelisks as clues before the tomb fills with sand (from the exterior wall holes).
And this is what I created which is just out of reach at the current-end of the level, suggesting what was to come but not giving too much away (other than in this blog post...)
Puzzle Concept, how visually it would be placed and thought process before applying idea in Kismet.
