Level 1 Outline
Summary of Level 1:
Level 1 of Charmed takes place in a metropolitan city and current home of the main character Felicity. We begin with a cutscene of Felicity expressing the frustration of her mother seemingly abandoning her while on her way home from school. The story kicks off in the form of a tutorial, allowing players to familiarize themselves with the core mechanics and grow in tandem with the story. As the player progresses, they find themselves entering a familiar city that’s been terrorized and desolated by an unknown entity. Players must rid the city of invasive monsters, find the source of destruction, and uncover the secret behind Felicity’s mother’s disappearance.
What was I responsible for:
Working on Charmed was my largest challenge to date. Both in terms of task load and time management. We were down 5 people compared to the two other groups in our cohort but were still expected to produce at the same level. To aid my team in making this feat possible I assisted in every department, on top of my role as Creative Director, and Design Lead. My contributions include the tutorial zone, 9/13 level 1 tiles from concept to final iteration, mesh replacements, set dressing, final lighting, & foliage painting of level one in its entirety. I also handled all level events, level streaming, spatialized ambient sfx, cinematics, and enemy encounter design across all levels. When my programmer was struggling with AI, I took over the programming of the snake enemy’s pathing, detection, attacks, decision tree, sound effects, and animation implementation. To help meet tight deadlines on deliverables I also took on the programming of gameplay mechanics including the cataclysm ability, the player roll, double jump, the unique charm kick damage & VFX design, the combo system & associated animation implementation, and the dialogue system. I also filled the roll of sound designer for all ambient, combat, movement, and enemy sound effects. To ease the workload on my single animator I reserved and directed a MoCap session to capture all player and enemy movement and combat animations.
Mechanics used in level:
When designing, I had to keep the unique abilities of each charm in mind. By default, the player has a roll that allows them to overlap enemies and get out of dodge if they’re ever overwhelmed. The Venom charm allows players to quickly dash in line and do single target damage to the enemy hit at the end of the range. Venom’s ability, strangle, allows players to latch on and pull themselves to a single target, dealing damage on connect and upon reaching the enemy. It’s great for picking off weaker hard to reach enemies or getting out of dodge. The cloud charm allows the player to double jump, and when charged, shoot a chain lightning bolt that strikes up to 3 nearby enemies. Lastly, the Cataclysm charm prevents rolling while equipped, but in exchange contributes a damage modifier to all successful heavy combos. At 10 fragments Cataclysm slam can be cast, unleashing a devastating area of effect shockwave that knocks up and damages enemies in range. Given all of these player mechanics, it was important players have a fairly low obstacle space to be able to learn their mobility potential in a frustration free way.
Enemy Types presented in level:
In level 1 the primary enemy you face is the snake. These snakes are quick, with short attack cooldowns. If you attempt to run, not only will they chase you, but will also opt to use their ranged spit attack. All enemies have 3 tiers in which their health, size, and damage is increased. The farther you progress, the higher the tiers you face.
Skill Level Expected of player:
The targeted skill level of players of Charmed is those who are familiar with games and have played a handful of casual combat oriented game, but are by no means required to be hardcore gamers. The target age range is 8-14.
High Stress vs. Low Stress
Charmed was intended to be a low stress fantasy beat em’ up, but in testing it proved that the theming caused heightened tension and the hoarding tendency of the Bipedal enemy made the experience stressful for some players.
Missions present:
From the beginning, the mission as to deliver a power fantasy. However, my spin on it was more of a dark, grounded, and challenging fantastical experience. The goal was more empowerment through fantastical trials. It was critical to me that I deliver a real, memorable story backed by relatable emotions, especially for the target demographic. Doing so in an environment that wasn’t the happy bright fantasy world you would expect the main character to occupy, just made sense.
Special/triggered events:
To really sell the fantastical chaos that had fallen upon the world, I created easily customizable blueprints for making any prop in the world float to a specified height and either stay suspended while rotating, reset, or drop. Settings were also available for cars to enable headlights and honking, which allowed cars to be used to illuminate the gameplay space in a more dynamic way. The use of the floater blueprint helped me breathe a little more life and chaos into a city already in disarray.
Aesthetics of Level:
I am and will always be an aesthetics person. However, with only one environmental artist responsible for creating all game assets, I emphasized utilizing light, post processing, and low-cost props to do the aesthetic heavy lifting. I opted for a contrasting color palette that was unsettling, conveyed conflict, and really drove home the idea that something had gone very wrong.
It was my hope to be able to implement more spatialized ambient sound effects, environmental lights in combat zones that reacted to player damage, and more reactive world events to make the player experience feel more dynamic. Unfortunately, we were met with tight deadlines and had to move it to the hopes and dreams task board.
Level 2 Outline
Summary of Level 2:
Level 2 of Charmed takes place in San Juan Puerto Rico, the childhood home of both Felicity and her mother Victoria. The story continues when Felicity shockingly emerges outside the walls of Old San Juan. Now that players have sufficiently trained with their abilities, the challenge is quite literally elevated. I intentionally designed level two to stand out in the sense that it has increased verticality and is warm and inviting yet poses a higher threat. As players venture into the city they find that it too has been ransacked and overrun by a new humanoid enemy. Players must rid the streets of monsters, take back the Governor’s mansion, and save Felicity’s mother.
What was I responsible for:
My work on level 2 actually began during winter break, before reconvening with my team. I had begun whiteboxing out level 2 to be a series of underground subway, maintenance, and sewer tunnels. The idea was to have it be a transition level that introduced players to the snake enemy. The original plan was to have 4 enemy types, Bipedal, Snake, Siren, and Avian. However, due to scope issues, and difficulties in the programming department with the Bipedal AI, the decision was made to have the snakes occupy level one, the underground level be cut, and the jump straight to the final level be made. In the planning of San Juan I put myself more into the shoes of the player and designed around what would be a fun place to fight. With lots of level 1 playtesting feedback taken into consideration, it was an easy decision to make level 2 into a redemption level of sorts. I was finally able to pull out the terrain tools to create a coastline, distant islands, and sloped streets. To better help my fellow level designers in Unreal Engine’s pre-world partition iteration, I traced our level map to create a BSP foundation and split it into 3 sub-levels. Sub-levels were classified as zones and assigned to an LD to take from whitebox to set dressing. I got a jump start on the first zone, whiteboxing the coastline, city walls, entry way, main street, and all surrounding buildings. I then handed off Level 1 and took full control of building level 2 from the ground up. Once all LDs had reached the set dressing stage, I went through all zones and painted debris, added or made certain props movable, and did a final lighting & grading pass. Across the board I created all pre-production maps, pace diagrams, voice actor scripts, level events, cinematics, environmental sound effects, and the dialogue system.
Mechanics used in level:
With players having fully grasped the mechanics at this point, it was important that I design the area to force their use. After all what’s the point in having a double jump if you never need to reach a rooftop, or the ground just isn’t a threat. In playtesting I found that an increase in difficulty had a direct correlation with how often people used their abilities, whether passive or active, as opposed to the previously effective stand still and kick it till it dies strategy. There was an especially large spike in the use of the cloud charm, which meant if difficulty was to rise, playable space had to rise with it. Floating objects allow players to temporarily escape danger, at least until the object comes plummeting back down. Joining rooftops were also a logical choice to break up possible monotony in encounters.
Enemy Types presented in level:
In level 2 the primary enemy is the Bipedal. While the Bipedal do suffer from AI and animation bugs, they are intended to act as slower but more brutal adversaries. The Bipedal has an arm slash attack at close range and a leap attack that ends in an area of effect slam, similar to the cataclysm ability. While their abilities are high damage, they also have much longer attack buffers. Like all enemies, the Bipedal have 3 tiers in which their health, size, and damage is increased. As you fight through the governors mansion you will find that the Bipedals are a very aggressive type of harm prone to Alpha culture.
Skill Level Expected of player:
While level two poses a much greater challenge, the targeted skill level of players of Charmed is still for those who are familiar with games and have played a handful of casual combat oriented games but are by no means required to be hardcore gamers. The target age range is 8-14.
High Stress vs. Low Stress
Charmed was intended to be a low stress fantasy beat em’ up, but in testing it proved that the theming caused heightened tension and the hoarding tendency of the Bipedal enemy made the experience stressful for some players.
Missions present:
From the beginning, the mission was to deliver a power fantasy. However, my spin on it was more of a dark, grounded, and challenging fantastical experience. The goal was more empowerment through fantastical trials. It was critical to me that I deliver a real, memorable story backed by relatable emotions, especially for the target demographic. Contrasting the gameplay spaces so heavily, while keeping one grounded in a real life location really helped sell the warped kind of reality I was looking to portray.
Culture:
Being someone who is huge on details, one of my favorite late additions to San Juan was the famous Umbrella Street. While in pre-production on the level I did extensive research into the culture of Old San Juan and Puerto Rico as a whole, even down to the indigenous birds so I wouldn’t accidently have the wrong ambient sounds for the location. Did you know there’s no seagulls in Puerto Rico? There’s laughing gulls, which have a different sound, and honestly just sound like superior seagulls. But I digress. San Juan is full of such rich culture and community and with one of my good friends and the voice of Felicity being Puerto Rican, it was very important for me to enable the environment and actors to tell that story.
Aesthetics of Level:
San Juan’s aesthetics are meant to be colorful, less hazy, and lively. Bringing this type of character to the space helps make the empty streets and tolling of the convent bells that much more ominous. I also utilized decals to aid in passive environmental story telling. Whether it be brightening an otherwise dull garden wall with flower graffiti, or implying there was a David and Goliath interaction between two Bipedal enemies that went horribly wrong. Another element of aesthetics that I began to realize I was undervaluing was background music. To attempt to remedy this, I implemented a larger variety of more high energy combat music to really set the tone and make the more challenging fights feel more exhilarating. Despite AI & Dialogue bugs due to time constraints, I am happy to call the redemption level a success.