My projects / SP_Escape

SP_Escape is a Gears of war map created for an intensive week at Supinfogame. This is a full map developed for one player proposing three different gameplays to explore. The pitch, Marcus is a prisoner, but he's about to escape...

The level

The level starts in Marcus cell. After breaking the door in one kick and eliminating the guard, Marcus gets out and go to the next floor. Here, the player can choose his path himself.

  • Stealth: He uses covers and tries to be silent...
  • Environnement Gameplay: He uses the environnement to create covers,...
  • Ready for action: Covers are breakable and ennemies have heavy weapons...

My mission

The level was done for an intensive week (a five days exercice with a team). We were a six team members

I worked on the level design and building on the "environnement gameplay" way, and built some other rooms on the whole map.



Place: Supinfogame
Production time: 1 week
Release: february 2009
Game used: Gears of war

Project team:
Laura Courouble
Maxime Gaffé
Remi Gallet
Mathieu Oldenhove
Arthur Rohart
Vincent Villaume

Task: Level Design: Sp_Escape

03.08.2009
Created for the project: SP_Escape on 2009 at Supinfogame - Skill: Level Design
Softwares: Unreal Development Kit
My work on SP_Escape concerned the environment gameplay sequence in particular. Scheduled, picking up a bomb, that must be planted elsewhere in the level to make a hole in the prison surrounding wall in order to get Marcus out. I worked on the level design concerning this sequence.

Level design

My work begins with the bomb pick up. This sequence offers a true challengeto the player. It asks for a good rhythm.

Situation
A bomb is placed in a particular ennemie's back: the boomer. Shoot him directly trigger the bomb crack. The boomer particularity is to shoot a lethal bullet every 5 seconds. He is behind a little group of weak ennemies and some blocks usable as covers.

Solution
The only solution for the player is to fight the weak ennemies and focus on being covered when the boomer shoots (every 5 seconds), then be close enough to pick up his bomb, and finally kill him.


Situation
Once the bomb is picked up, Marcus must cross a room digged in the rocksin wich emergence holes appear (holes where weak ennemies comes out endlessly).

Solution
The aim is to block them by shooting the flacky rocks on the ceiling. The challenge consists in forcing the player to share his shooting time between ennemies and rocks.

Marcus is now close to the bomb planting point. My work stops here.

Level building

Once the level design ready, I worked on dressing up the rooms. I had to replace the bsp (géometries) by static meshes (3D models): rocks, cross beams, etc.

Kismet

This part of level design needed a lot of scripting:

  • attaching the bomb in the boomer back
  • allowing Marcus to pick it up by pressing the validate button and place it in his back.
  • planting it elsewhere
  • getting the emergence holes spawning ennemies
  • handling the rocks used to block the holes...

Summary

The game sequence I worked on contains some challenges in its Level Design: handling the time for the player, forcing him to avoid a lethal shot every five seconds, and handling the shooting time between ennemies and obstacles to reduce in a pile of debris. More in the article.
Work: I created the level design on these challenges, dressed up some rooms and scripted events using the Kismet.

Some pictures

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