Development of this Map in Hindsight

This is a discussion of how the development of this map went.

Level Design and Layout

Designing this map was really fun for me, despite being a lot of work. The workload is a result of the size and layouts I decided to use for this map. But doing things like this top-down map during the preproduction phase of development helped streamline the actual building of the level. I had already had a plan of some sort for how each area of this level was to be laid out. I did cut one room which made me go back a figure out how I wanted to position the rooms so that the paths from one room to the next didn't disrupt the player's immersion in the level and break the level's flow. I do wish that I had made more detailed plans for how the elevator that takes the player out of the Labyrinth and to the side door of the Worship Area since I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure that out in a way that fits the map.

Theme

Using this Greco-roman theme throughout the map was a lot of fun. I was able to do a lot of cool things with the trim in rooms, especially in the worship area. I was lucky to find textures that fit this narrative of Poseidon and the Minotaur. The hardest area to texture was the hallway that connects the Dungeon and the Labyrinth. I wanted it to be ominous and gritty but still let the player know visually that they are entering the Minotaur's maze. The textures with the Minotaur's head on them were all for a lighter wall. I didn't modify the brightness on some so that they were darker. Finding a darker stone texture that matched Minotaur textures was difficult. I settle on using a darker rocky texture that uses blue hues instead of red ones to match the blue-ish hues of it.

Outside

I found a night sky skybox texture that I wanted to use but I also need to then light the outside areas in a way that made sense to the light source of the moon. I placed a moon in the scene, right above where the player spawns, and used a skylight set at an angle to get the shadows that are in the scene. I didn't need to play around with the placement of the moon so that it doesn't cast a weird shadow itself.

Using Quake's Engine

The big obstacle was seeing what worked and what didn't work in the Quake engine. On a small scale, this affected things like setting up how the enemies run at the player in the labyrinth and how doors are set up. On a larger scale, this affected how the three silver key doors at the center of the Labyrinth and the gameplay around them were set up. Quake doesn't really let the player know when they have used a key and players can't carry multiples of each key. I needed to figure out how to let the player know that they have used the silver key they picked up and that they need to go find another one to open the other doors. I tried to not just use an on-screen message to do this, but the things I tried still left players confused since they didn't know they no longer had the silver key once they have used it. I ended up putting triggered messages in the doorways of those silver key doors to let the player know that they no longer had the silver key. Having that message display once they pass through the door made the "You need the silver key" message that displays when they try the other doors less confusing.

Playtesting

Playtesting this level was a lot easier than my previous project, which was a multiplayer level for Quake deathmatches. I didn't need to gather together a lot of people and get on a server to test, I could just ask my roommate to play through it while I watched. Because it was easier to casually test, I could have a larger variety of players play it: people who were familiar with Quake, people who were familiar with modern FPS games but not Quake, and people who really weren't familiar with FPS games at all. I could have more casual tests with these people and quickly see what smaller things could be improved upon rather than having to wait until I could get a group of people together and a server running in order to test.