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Sunset Striders

A Third Person Open World Adventure

Sound on!

Introduction

In this project, I aimed to delve into the challenges of large scale level design while investigating player attention. I sought to infuse combat gameplay for added complexity while prioritizing engaging traversal and simultaneously maintaining player direction.
Project details
  • Developer over: 6 weeks, halftime
  • Engine: Unreal Engine
  • Blender
  • Assets used: 
    - Template by Max Forsberg
    - Animal Variety Pack by Protofactor INC
​

Overview

Synopsis
The player plays a Pinkerton who has been tasked with assisting the locals with a ravaging gang called The Black Spurs. Arriving on boat, the player learns more about the situation and pointed towords an informant. The player is then tasked to eliminate the Black Spurs at specific locations.
Overview

Pre Production

Early scetches
I started by making rough scetches of ideas that was based on fun exploration and interesting traversal. The goal was to get an estimate of what is possible within the planned time.
Inspiration
Because I wanted the "cowboy theme" I drew inspiration Red Dead Redemption 2 to create the landscape but Skyrim for the level design. I also looked at old pictures from that time period.
Documentation
Making a great story is time consuming so to be more efficient I used ChatGPT to create a complicated story with lots of characters and twists.

Blockout

Google Maps | Blender | Heightmap
While creating the large open world, I wanted to make it realistic in regards to scale and believability. The achieve this, I used 3D renders from Google Maps and imported those to Blender. By stitching the 3D renders together, I could get a rough idea of scale and elevation. I then created a material that would imitate a heightmap. Finally, I exported the heightmap to Unreal and applied it to the landscape.  
Sightlines
As soon as I made a blockout I placed all the sightlines I would need. It was important to keep track of these throughout the process. Sightlines are indicated with pink lines.
Main Path
Altough I had a main path planned in mind I was very cautious of creating actual roads. I wanted playtesters to navigate themselves by the level design and not by explicit information such as signs and roads.

Blockout to whitebox

Cascade Cove

Winchester Tobacco Farm

Lunar Lode

Harland Ranch

THE DESIGN

Story beats

The marked story beats below are the most impactful moments in the playthorugh. The distance between the beats decide the overall tempo. The beats are distributed differently to create an enganging story.
StoryBeats_9.jpg

7

StoryBeats_11.jpg

8

StoryBeats_5.jpg

5

StoryBeats_6.jpg

6

StoryBeats_4.jpg

3

StoryBeats_2.jpg

2

StoryBeats_1.jpg

1

StoryBeats_3.jpg

4

Call to action

Because the world is very large I knew early in development that I had to create a substantial onboarding for the player. The first step was to inform, show and equip the player with directions.

Establishing shots

As part of the onboarding I wanted to highlight some parts of the level to the player to make them more memorable. This also offers the player the abiity to create a mindmap of the level as a whole.

OPEN WORLD

Discover the world

Player choice is one of the pillars of open world level design. To encourage the player to explore, I highlight point of interests and reward the player when they get there. The goal was that it should be fun to be off track.

Find your way

In contrary to luring the player away from the main path, it is equally important to make sure that the player always can find their way back to the main path. 

Landmarks and focal points

Landmarks are used to help the player orient and navigate themselves in the open world. Focal points are used in specific areas to indicate what is coming ahead, a type of foreshadowing.
Spaces
In addition to story beats, spaces are a driving factor to the tempo.
 
  • Dwelling spaces doesn't promote movement.
  • Served spaces have purpose by design.
  • Roaming spaces promote fast movement.
  • Servant spaces are corridors between spaces to funnel the player.

Full playthrough with commentary

Closing thoughts

Creating such a large level was a lot of fun with all the new challanges that I met. I am very happy with the result and I believe I managed to create an interesting and fun large scale level.

Looking back at my mistakes, I realize that I spent too much time developing a story and a heightmap. Even though I had great material for a realistic and  exciting experience, the level design was further behind in schedule than ideal. In hindsight, creating such a large level was a bit of overscope. I succeded with my goals but some parts of the level are therefore somewhat underdeveloped. 

I should instead have prioritized on making more content that the player could explore. I would also liked to have more time iterating on the world after playtest feedback.

 
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