As part of my role of the team, I wanted to start creating some level designs based off of the environment concepts that Bayley had already created. Bayley wanted to focus on environmental design so I figured creating basic level designs would be the most useful.
We liked having lots of round shapes and big open spaces. During one of our weekly team meetings, we decided that we should have 3 levels to keep the scope of the game manageable. The rooms that we decide on, from our theme research, were:
Room One: Library
Items fall from the ceiling when the player approaches the door after cleaning the room. This room is good as a tutorial as it sets up the basic cleaning mechanics and then shows the player that not everything is as straightforward as it seems at first.
Room Two: Laboratory
The Lab is split into two parts: an initial clean room and a second basement room where the mess is located. The player must find the basement room by lifting up the rug and finding the trap door. There is a monster in the basement.
Room Three: Orrery Room
The Orrery is where the Wizard Lives. There are platforms the player must climb on to be able to reach and clean up all the mess.
BLENDER
To create the level designs I will be using Blender. I've used Blender in the past, but I definitely need to practice more as I'm not familiar with where everything is and what the shortcuts are. Even if things don't come out perfect the first few times, I'll hopefully get better as I go along.
ITERATION #1
Here were my quick initial designs. I decided to mock these up in blender so that we could test camera location and scale. During a team meeting we talked about how the camera would move: would it be locked in a fixed isometric view like in the drawing concepts, or would the camera follow the player? The best way to test this would be to have 3d rooms we could mess around in.
In this initial version: Green is objects that are mopped up, Blue is objects that must be disposed of, and pink is objects that can be moved. The pale pink object is the main character for scale. I tried to think about height since our setting is a tower, it seems a waste not to play with height.
I wanted to create mini puzzles in the environment, making the player think about how they would scale the tower. There are two planks, but only 1 is long enough to reach the light/chandelier from the ledge. I don't want the puzzle-like aspects to be too difficult as our game is supposed to be relaxing, not frustrating.
However, I did forget about where to dispose of the trash. Also, everything seems quite squished in the room. I think there needs to be a lot more room.
ITERATION #2
For the next iteration, I made the level a lot bigger than before. I tried to think of how I could make a library more interesting. Instead of having bookshelves all lined up in a row, I focused on the round shape of the room. I really like how the staircases look, I think theses add a grand, fantasy feel. I also played with where to put the trash disposal, I didn't want it too far away that it was annoying to keep walking to it from across the other side of the level. I could also consider adding a second trash disposal point.
Below is a sped-up video of me creating this level.
ITERATION #3
For this iteration, I wanted to create a level with more height. I was thinking this might be a good way to break up larger levels and make the player feel like they're progressing up the wizard's tower. I like how the trash disposal is in the middle of the room, this way the player can pick up trash and drop it over the side of the stairs. I'm conscious that the player might get dizzy going up such a narrow flight of stairs, so I might also need to make the level wider.
Below is a sped-up video of me creating this level.
I think I have a good starting point for developing the levels and my 3D skills are getting better as I'm practising, however, the current level designs all seem a bit boring too me and I don't think they quite fit what we discussed. I'm going to keep going until I'm happier with them.