Grey Box - sonkiboy/SewageUnderpass GitHub Wiki

First Pass

With the first in engine pass at designing a level, I knew I needed to expand the map beyond the initial sketch. I started by just blocking out what I already had sketched out, and already the openness of the map was starting to becoming a bit jarring. The large ceilings were making rooms and halls feel a lot more open than I initially anticipated. I tried experimenting around with changing the height and width of the halls, trying to get something that didn't feel too big, nor too cramped. However I think the height really added a lot to the main arena on the main level.

The open nature made the area more imposing to enter, but also allowed for a lot of combat opportunities between the levels of action. While currently I feel like the size is at a good place, navigation and cover in this area will be a large focus when playtesting.

However, there were some areas that I felt could be expanded upon, and I wanted to add more areas for the players to explore. Some of my peers who reviewed the initial concept suggested having a hole under the bridge in the center arena where the water would be flowing towards. This creates a path to a new area in the map, adds more verticality, and makes sense within the narrative and aesthetics of the map as a whole.

This new underground area is a lot more open, as I wanted this to be a very risky area to be in. Little cover and no way back up through the hole in the ceiling, which is where most people will be coming up from. However, this created the issue of getting back up? The first area I added to solve this was the ramped area shown below.

This area connects the underground room, to the upper path, exiting right next to the ramp leading to the spawn. While it takes a bit of time to get up, the gap in the center gives a quick way down at the risk of health. There are also two spawn points at the bottom and top to incentivize players to use it over the hole in the arena. However I didn't like how much of a choke point this created, and how slow it felt. As a result I added teleporters that connected the underground back up to the main floor. While quicker they lead to very exposed areas on the main floor, right next to where the main path meets the side halls. I'm interested to see how players decide to navigate between the two areas now, and want that to be the main focus when playtesting next.

Video Walkthrough of Block out: