Introduction to Project
Welcome to Dungeon of Omen's this project stands as my final year project for my bachelors within games design and show cases my skills as a level designer along with my ability in crating engaging gameplay along with putting my blueprinting to the test with AI and gameplay mechanics to create a true dungeon crawler experience.
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Dungeon of Omen's puts the player in the shining boots of a noble knight who has uncovered an ancient hall of hero's that has since fallen to goblin hordes who now inhabit the once grate hall, the player must hack and slash their way through the halls of the dungeon and caves collecting potions to keep their health up along with lost runes within the level seeking a way out of the dungeons depths.
Project Breakdown and Deliverables
The overall deliverables within this project can be found within the documentation I have provided below this documentation covers over the projects overall goals and the aspects that will be included within the project along with giving justification to any of my design choices during the projects development.
Progression and Design Changes
During the project change in design was made in order to meet given deadlines along with focusing my project mainly towards the level design element although with a playable project still my overall goal I designed my game based around a third person point of view, listed below is my progress review I made that covers each of my design changes and justified why I had made them during the projects development.
Level design Brakadown
The overall focus of the project was based around the level design for this I decided to create a dungeon that sprawled out in three main directions from the entrance where the player would spawn this let the player make a decision on what direction they would take throughout the level.
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To make sure the player would not get lost within the level and to reduce backtracking my level had serval areas such as caves that dropped the player off from one end of the dungeon to another to maximise the players enjoyment of seeing the different environments and story telling and reducing frustrating backtracking.
Level Playtesting Results
During playtesting it was important to not tell any of my participants the overall goal of the game and just allow players to explore and discover the games level and mechanics naturally for this I had serval people playtest my games level with no given knowledge about the game to see how they would react.
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Within the playtesting results I had found players had enjoyed my level and had felt that it was easy to navigate around without feeling lost along with this players found the level of detail impressive with players enjoying the environmental story telling show to them throughout the level.
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The main arears of the project that I needed to focused on where getting the games mechanics working as intended as currently in this stage of the project players found the mechanics to be boring and unengaging for the player but overall the project as a whole held together and showed off my skills within level design making my projects main goal a success from this point on I would work on making improvements to the level overall or making improvements to the games mechanics as I still wanted to create engaging gameplay fit for the level.
Entrance Hall - Introduction
The Entrance Hall is the spawn location for the player when starting the game, from this point the player will receive their sword and shield along with several health potions.
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This stage of the level serves as the core point the player will be able to be drawn back to regardless of what direction the player choices as seen in the image of this section several rugs each with their own colour assigned to them act as a subtitle way of guiding the player and given them information on what side of the level they are currently on.
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During the creation of the level it was important to not make the spawning area overly complex as it was to serve as an introduction to the players once they gathered themself and learned the games mechanics and gameplay.
Gameplay Breakdown
During this project the level design had been the main focus to show off although gameplay had been designed and implemented within the project as I wanted to show off a prototype to demonstrate the level for this I had crated a basic gameplay loop of the player looking for both an exit to the dungeon along with collectables to encourage exploration.
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I had also created a basic set of AI enemies that would rush the player along with the players health potion mechanic and combat mechanics at this point I had crated my gameplay loop that could be used while testing the projects level, listed below is a full PDF report on the project listing everything that I did within the project.
Wardens Room - Introduction
The player might choose to follow the red rug down to the dungeons holding cells where they will first find the wardens room where guards would rest taking shifts keeping an eye on captives, within the actually holding cells the player will find a number of scenes that have unfolded from within the cells even an attempted escape that had been stopped by goblins bursting through to the other side.
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The player can find health potions and a cave entrances that will lead them to the grand hall along with a rune to collect this area has three parts from the warders room to the holding cells and the execution room where the players will find the most loot and enemies lurking.
Overall Level Review
Overall the project holds together with a set of prototype mechanics that created the intended gameplay loop for my level along with this the level itself holds together very well, engaging the players within playtesting and demonstrating what my capability's are within level design.
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Gameplay for the project was kept simple for testing along with keeping the projects scope on the large scale level although I did learn new elements of unreal engine whilst working on this project.
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When looking back at the project I believe it achieved its original goal and more as this project stands as a milestone in my experience within engine and creating engaging gameplay within immersive levels that the player can explore and enjoy.
Level Introduction - Large Goblin Village
Entering the large broken down wall from the grand hall the player will find themself in the first large goblin village, a once used mineshaft that now has been made into the goblins home with goblin tents and guard towers filling the caves as the player will hack and slash their way out of the dungeon and towards the surface.
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This set of cave systems guide the player throughout sevrel caves each with their own style and theme as some of the goblins have gathered and used parts of the mineshafts as a part of their home where others have set up a fort within the bones of a dead dragon.
Overview And Gameplay
Overall this project served as my final year project during my bachelors degree within games design and for this stands to show all that I had learned during my studies put into a project as my documentation shows the efforts and work that had been put into the design work and planning of this project.
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The project itself was a labour of determination and love towards wanting to make this the best project I could create with my skills within level design and with this said based on the feedback from play testers I have found this project achieves what I had set out originally to do and surpasses this with myself being able to say I've learned a lot more while working on this project within unreal engine 4.
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As seen below I have Included and overview video where I had originally gone over my thoughts after finishing the project within this video you can see the projects gameplay and level fully explained and my thought process when creating this game for my final year project.