PROJECT DETAILS

 

Project Name: Drone Strike

Type: Solo Project

Duration: 7 weeks

Genre: First Person Shooter

Role: Level Designer

Engine: UDK

Year: 2014

 

RESPONSIBILITIES & THOUGHT PROCESS

 

Drone Strike is a level design I created within the UDK engine as a UDK deathmatch level for 4 players based on the movie Se7en (1995).

 

Development started off by doing research into suitable apartment buildings and this was used to create a moodboard from which could be used as areas to then build into a level. When I had a sufficient amount of reseach, I started building a node map to get a clear understanding of every area and how they would connect to each other, after which I made a top-down mockup of every layer of the level. 

 

When the concept stage was completed development of the level started in UDK with brushes, which allowed for quick editing. As soon as I had finished the level using my sketches, I started play testing to improve it. I kept iterating on the design in UDK. During development it became clear that the theme gave complications for building an Unreal Tournament level. The game does not work well with small spaces and heavily relies on vision. Furthermore, the fact that the level was based on an apartment building, meant that it had a lot of 90-degree corners. These were the primary issues I focussed on to improve the level, with the final improvement being taking part of the roof off to allow for more viewing lines and more space, creating the final design.