I'm Free Production Blog 1

I'm Free Sprint 1

My game project for CAGD 470 is an endless roguelike runner called I'm Free. My role in our team is the level designer. Now that Sprint 1 of I'm Free is finished, it's time to write about the progress of the game's development. For this sprint, I was assigned 4 cards with a total of 6 points. I finished two by the end of the sprint. 

The first card I worked on and completed was "As a level designer, I need to block out a cookie cutter template map that will be used to send the player in multiple scenarios." As the models and mechanics are being worked on, I'll start designing the generated levels by blocking them out in Unity. Our initial decision was to make square levels that could interchangeably connect together if they're all the same dimension, hence "cookie-cutter" levels. But after blocking out some levels and going over how the game plays, I realized that our gameplay was very linear. I talked to our producer about this and we decided to use Ape Out as inspiration in terms of level progression. Instead of just square rooms/levels, there will also be non-linear levels and larger rooms that connect together. Basically, instead of one long hallway, the game will play in a pattern of room-hall-room.

This is where the "As a level designer, I need to block out differently shaped maps that stem from a square base and can connect to one another and send my character through different paths and scenarios." card comes into play. In a sense, I worked on these two cards at the same time, piecing together blocked out room and halls together. 

Square levels / "cookie-cutters"

Non-linear levels

After blocking out about twenty different rooms for the laboratory, we decided that we should add more settings so the game will have an underlying narrative. After the player completes a number of laboratory levels, they will head outside. Thus my next assigned card is "As a player, I want to feel like I'm free from the lab I broke out of and now in the open air, however, I'm still fenced in and must keep moving to the right". The task for this card is to block out a number of outdoor levels. This is also the card that was in-progress up to the start of Sprint 2. By the time, I'm writing this I just finished blocking out the levels for our outdoor levels. I also realized that the scaling of these levels is messed up. Some rooms go by 1s and 10s while other rooms had decimals. I'm not sure where in the process I mixed up the scale but it shouldn't be too big of a problem as these are only block-outs and are not placed in any actual Unity scene that would be used for the game itself. It just is confusing to scale things. Even the player prefab we have was tiny in the level that I had to scale the entire two block-outs (the lab and the outdoor levels) to 0.2 units (depicted below). I also had to rotate the levels 180 so the camera was facing the correct way (depicted below). These are small issues thankfully and we should be able to progress forward without complications due to these problems. 

Outdoor level block out

Close up of the beginning of the outdoor level

The last card I didn't get to was "As a player, I want to feel like I'm in the middle of a science lab with a bunch of equipment and breakable objects for me to smash and rampage through.". This card was for adding the props and assets to the laboratory levels. However, I'm blocked as the models and assets for the laboratory setting are not complete. Our modeler, Brandon, is working hard to get them done and around the end of Sprint 1, he appears to have finished about 16 of the 17 models for the laboratory. I will probably work on this card once all the assets and props are verified by our producer and added to Unity. 

Overall, I completed 2 cards and 4 points by the end of Sprint 1. There are no large issues that would complicate us as of now. For Sprint 2, I was assigned 2 more cards about blocking out other settings such as a military base and a forest level. So currently I have 4 cards assigned and 8 points with one of those cards and points in "to verify". I'll most likely talk about the rest of my block-outs and fleshing out the laboratory level with assets in the next blog. Until then.