Level Design Wanderer's Rest - Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
Wanderer's Rest, the 3rd zone of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn was a massive endeavour to get right. It was one of the first developed areas to be fully art dressed before I was even on the team and before the game was completely rewritten and the gameplay changed. I worked on this area for small reworks and updates to the eventual major reworks later on.
I'd like to thank the following for making everything pretty and for inspiring me, because without them these areas would just be grey blocks:
Art dressing:
Jack Bronswijk https://www.artstation.com/jack_bronswijk
Sietske Wielsma https://www.artstation.com/sietske
Maarten Hof https://www.artstation.com/maartenhof
Lighting:
Ognyan Zahariev https://www.artstation.com/ognyan
Ana Belén Hernández Tornero
https://www.artstation.com/anahertor
ℹ️ Welcome to Wanderer's Rest!
I was responsible for the redesign of a majority of the level design of this zone all along the main story path and some adjacent areas.
Additionally I designed and implemented side quest quests and enemy encounters.
ℹ️ It was important to me to retain an open-world feeling to this zone despite a lot of the game’s levels being redesigned more linearly.
I thought it would feel more refreshing and engaging for the last zone of the game to have more player choice.
ℹ️ Composition needed a lot of work here. We wanted the player to be aware of their main goal, the city, but also see paths that lead to other opportunities such as side quests and hidden rewards.
👁️ from the EYE position on the map notice how the player is positioned after the slide down the hill to face their main objective with extra content in their peripheral.
🟢 The green line is the main story path.
ℹ️ I boasted the visual hierarchy of the main road by
- Asked the art team to increase the size of the main temple landmark.
- Majorly adjusted the main road so it could be seen flowing up towards the city instead of being hidden behind the cliffs.
ℹ️ The encounter was important to pull the player down the main road to the city. It also gives the player a simple challenge they can deconstruct differently each retry from the save point.
ℹ️ The River and a shallow crossing were added to guide players to the main road. Additionally we removed a lot of foliage and rocks competing for attention.
With the main path clear, I had room to design encounters and rewards off the path.
ℹ️ To me it was important that from the save point that there be plenty of opportunities available to the player on repeat visits and retries.
Giving depth to enemy encounters so they could be deconstructed with multiple approaches.
ℹ️ Once inside the city dungeon, I wanted a shift in tone and challenge. The encounters and level design should feel like the the city is occupied and that you’re infiltrating.
ℹ️ A main horde encounter was designed to have the player avoid the main road by use of overwhelming numbers. Inspired by central Yharnam from Bloodborne.
ℹ️ We wanted to convey that the god that invaded the city left a path of destruction through the city. The emissive cracks in the road both lead up to a locked gate towards the boss room and down towards the docks where there’s a secret way around.
ℹ️ The level design had to majorly change for better flow, only we couldn't change the building layout a lot. There was a lot of back and forth with art, concept, and narrative to pull everything together.
ℹ️ From the EYE position on the map, players are blocked from taking a direct route to the boss room, and must discover a hidden route. It was important to establish the key landmark and points of interest and encounters that chained together.
ℹ️ This area used to be another save location (a coffee shop), but there was no purpose for it. Instead we made it the battleground for the invasion of the city, with the main temple that houses the zone’s boss responsible framed in the background.
ℹ️ This side route was all added to improve flow and lengthen the dungeon.
ℹ️ Jumping back a bit, this area was completely redesigned for narrative and to split the zone into two halves for pacing reasons. Once the player is finished exploring the first half of the map they must pass through this story beat location.
ℹ️ With the main path obvious enough, I created some environments puzzles and hidden rewards off to the right.
ℹ️ The idea was to slow the player down for dialogue and reflection for this section.
ℹ️ Interrupting the down-beat is an area for combat and a wall that blows up for your escape.
ℹ️ Exiting the underground temple the players is shown the wider open-world before going into a mini-boss fight.
ℹ️ Going back to the start of this portfolio piece! Players had a choice to go back and up the spires for a section focused on linear progression upwards towards a reward at the very top of the spires. Shortcuts are unlocked as you go.
ℹ️ From the EYE position on the map, players have just entered the second portion of the map and have a vista of the open world and their main goal, the city.
ℹ️ The vista as described in the last image. The starting location of this portfolio piece and of the second half of the zone.
ℹ️ These are just a few of the areas that I worked on, excluding the areas that were cut :(
Feel free to reach out if you want to hear more!
ℹ️ This is the map for Wanderer's Rest and the locations I had a hand in working on.
ℹ️ I designed "When Duty Calls" Side quest and implemented into the game.
This requires a lot of upkeep because of all the AI and quest logic.
ℹ️ I designed "No Rest for the Wicked" Side quest and implemented into the game.
ℹ️ I designed the level for "To the Forgotten" Side quest and implemented into the game. Had multiple iteration since i designed the original and then it was handed back to me to clean up.
ℹ️ I helped design the major side quest "The Family Condition". I implemented the quest logic, enemy encounters, and reworked the level design. All while communicating with the other departments from start to finish for what you see as the end result.