Concept for Original game idea

 

 

 

If I were hired to come up with an original game idea for a games company then the idea I would pitch would be a first person action-stealth game focusing on the stealth and exploration of a level or environment with the ability to climb the area with an assortment of items and your own abilities. Gameplay would be focused on avoiding enemy’s altogether but give the player the ability to fight back after introducing abilities and skills as well as your items that you use to climb and traverse an area. The story or theme that the game would follow is on honour/betrayal, greed and trusting the people you interact with there being rewards and risk in how you interact with them. An example would be you the player are talking to a chamber maid so you can get into the estate to steal a piece of the Planispheric disk (this being one way to get in) the way you talk to her will affect how the heist will go, if you go aggressive and threaten her life if she doesn’t help you this will lead the chamber maid to inform the guards of the estate and make your getaway harder to accomplish. While if you convince her that taking the disk from the Count of the estate is the best course of action while you promise to take care of the Count so the people of the area he controls can prosper this later rewards you with a distraction created to help you escape. This later affects how other characters occupying the world see you and can make your mission harder or easier.

After pitching the concept of the idea to the heads of the games company I’d tell them about the backstory. This would follow Talock an assassin/thief and master of shadows as he gets drawn into a conspiracy that involves the Planispheric disk and an ancient treasure that is said to be buried under the city with it being cursed and houses an evil that will consume the world in war, disease and fear. Made all to true with the current plague (called the Bloom) consuming the city and killing off the poor who cannot get their hands on a vaccine or cure as the rich and powerful watch on and the leader of the city plans on uniting the Planispheric disk and finding the ancient treasure no matter who he needs to step on to get to it. The main environment that you would play through would be a Large Victorian steam punk like city with an dark atmosphere narrow side streets and close knitted buildings allowing the ability to travel across the roof tops while there will also be other environments form government buildings, old asylum to large towers holding secrets related to the story.

Characters

Finished with telling them about the backstory and the environment I’d described some of the characters.

Talock

Talock being an assassin/thief wears a tattered black coat with a hood to hide his face and leather straps on his body to hold his gear as well as knee high boots and a short blade strapped to his lower back. He is tall with an athletic build for running and he can move in between shadows without being seen as well as climbing nimbly from building to building.

The Master

A man of regale taste and stature The Master is the lord and supposed protector of the city. He wears a long red overcoat for a lord with brown leather gloves and boots to protect his hands and feet, his thick leather pants and undershirt protect him from would be assassins that could take his life and a slash across his chest that represents his role as leader of the city. He has a balding patch on the top of his head he has come over as well as a moustache on his top lip that curls at the ends he is well built like a fighter and carries a rapped firing crossbow that he uses to kill his enemies.

 

Karric

A doctor by trade Karric is the upcoming leader of a group that wants to bring equal rights to that poor by placing a leader that will help them and not just indulge the rich and powerful. Karric is a man of short stature but has an athletic build with a doctor like coat to protect him from the Bloom as well as a mask that protects his lower face from the spores the Bloom releases and gloves to protect his hands from contagion with his hair combed back hidden from the mask would be his goatee that is neat and clean giving him a high society look.

The central theme being Greed links the characters and story together with the gameplay  this is shown in The Master only catering to the needs of the rich so he can gather the Planispheric Disk to find the treasure underneath the city, to how the players greed can get the better of them do they go after the items to steal so they have more money to spend on gear and risk being seen and making the his harder or complete the objective and don’t have a piece of gear that can make you mission much easier. This is also seen in how other NPC’s act to the poor attacking and uprising to other characters and the greed that feeds their desires.

Some referience Images that help with giving the look of the enviroment and concept art of what the level and game will look like.

 An image of 1900 london traffic with smarug in the background.

 

A street of london with an overhead arch that leades to bridge showing the areas that narrow streets lead to.
 



 

Level Desginer's

A ‘Game level’ would be an environment where a player has a starting point and end point where they can move around between both points to complete objectives or story scripted events to continue the story.

A level designer job is to create video game levels this can be anything from locations, stages, or missions in the game this is done using a “level editor” (game development software designed for building levels) through some games feature built-in level editing tools.  Level design wasn't a main role until the introduction of text based games like MUD’s in the early days of video games a single programmer would create the maps and layouts for a game, as the discipline or profession dedicated solely to level design did not exist yet. This has changed over the years with the introduction of level editors making the work load on other areas lighter as a single person or group depending on the project could design the levels instead of the programmer. Level design has become a profession that is just as important as a visual artist or programmer since like in programming if the code is not up to scratch the game-play will fail if the level is not laid out right and there is no clear way to go to get to the next area and objects or enemies that aren't meant to be in the setting are there then it ruins the game-play the programmer has worked on and the game itself. Level designers play a big part in the final product of a game with most having prior knowledge in areas of visual artist and game developer aiding in being a level developer.

There are a number of possibilities that the future holds for level designers one such possibility is level designers having more say in how a game plays and it’s art style and how the level will revolve around the story or how the story will affect the environment.

The levels from ‘Left 4 Dead 2’ are what I consider good level design because of the fact that the route you took with each play-through would change meaning the strategy you had in the first play-through needs to change so you survive the hordes of zombies since you don’t know where the zombies are coming from and this makes game-play more enjoyable and helps with replay ability which is what you want your games to have. 

If I was a level designer in the 1980s I would develop a game on a home console with how home gaming has become more popular with the release of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) the game that I would develop would be an action-adventure genre game were you play a hero travelling to distant lands to destroy the evils of castle oblivion and retrieve the consuming dragon stone. The game itself will be a 2D side scroller dungeon explorer were you need to explore Castle Oblivion to retrieve items that will give you the ability to unlock and explore new areas of the castle so you can power to defeat the evil of the castle.

           

         

Game levels and environments have changed over the years from the 1980s to 1990s and after 2004 with the introduction of the Xbox360 and PlayStation 3. I compared three games that were released during these times PAC-man (1980s), Final Fantasy VII (1990s) and dead rising (2006). While PAC-man’s levels get harder with every completed stage Final Fantasy 7 is different in that you level up you character so that you can continue the story while Dead Rising you complete curtain objectives to continue the story in the game getting harder as time goes by. The environments differ in the fact that in PAC-man being that it is a 2D game they get more integrate with each new level, while Final Fantasy 7 environments get explored as the story goes along and they have tougher enemies to challenge. Dead Rising has more parts of the environment unlock as you unlock new skills and save more people that are trapped in the mall that the game is set in.   

A game’s genre affects how levels and environments are designed by how someone will play them. A first-person shooter like the Call of duty franchise has a very linear type of level, it’s all about getting from the start to finish while killing enemies along the way and completing objectives of the level if there is any. RPG’s levels can vary from completing objectives to levelling up like in Final Fantasy 13 in the level you need to level up by beating the monsters in the area and completing certain objectives that have you pitted against stronger monsters then yourself so you can level up faster most of the environment in this level is a flat plain so that you can find the monsters easier. Lastly real-time strategy has an abundant of different environments depending of the setting of the game but a level in Total War: Shogun 2 where you need to attack a castle during winter season with the snow drop environment your armies move at a slower pace meaning that the enemy armies occupying the castle have more time to bring up their defences this also leaves you valuable to attack as well. The risk-reward of the level is do you wait to set up your forces or do you attack in waves to weaken the enemy to make it easier to take the castle. As you can see a genre affect’s not only how the game plays but also how you react to the environment and the level itself.