RPG / JRPG Environment (Level Design Sample)

Team Size: 1

Role: Level Designer.

Development Cycle: 2 weeks (Shipped October 2014).

Description: This is an exterior environment I designed for an advanced level design course, designed in the realm of JRPG style games.

Core Tasks:

-Level Design.

POSTMORTEM

What went well:

-Foreshadowing and visual incentives for players to explore areas within the level is very strong.

-Natural flow of the level forces the player to recognize their past accomplishments and reflect on these accomplishments.

-The sense of scale is powerful, and the player feels legitimately minuscule in comparison to the environment around them.

-There are several little nooks and crannies that make the large space feel small and intimate in areas. These spaces can also be used to hide treasure chests and pickups in a full scale game.

What went wrong:

-The grassy sections on either side of the trench offer very little incentive for exploration.

-The lack of NPC interaction makes the space feel a lot lest populated and interesting, and doesn't show the full potential of the space.

-The 'walls' that hide the edges of the space are cheap and very obvious, and stick out when juxtapositioed with the rest of the space.

What I learned:

-Ensure big open spaces also have an opportunity to feel small and intimate through level design on a micro scale, as well as through NPC or story elements.

-Offer players a visual incentive to explore areas that aren't immediately available to them.