Level Design:

Level design was definitely the largest portion of my work on The Cleaners' Hideout. While I was always conscious about the enemies I intended to have in each area, my thoughts were focused on providing interesting and effective positions and paths for the player to follow. In that line, the dungeon is definitely focused more on Fallout's shooter aspects than storytelling, making use of natural cover, corners and turns to break sight lines, and terrain height differences to inspire the use of different weaponry.

The hardest part of the level design was working with the engine itself. While the creation kit is very powerful in terms of what it CAN do, I struggled to get those things done correctly and completely. The engine crashed far too often for a modern engine and I was unable to get certain aspects (water and skybox) to work the way I intended, resulting in 2 major design changes. I also struggled with the modular kit that made up the backbone of the area I built.

Fallout uses some modular set pieces to aid the speed of area creation in the Creation Kit. Modular kits can be very powerful, but they suffer from repetition and the limits of the pieces built therein. I also discovered that I had picked a notoriously challenging set of pieces that was not regularly used in the game. Additionally, some pieces didn't seem to logically fit anywhere like a corner piece with angled edges (when the rest of the pack has straight edges that align).

Regardless, I was able to complete the design and implementation cycle. I began with concepting the level based on intended player, tone, theme, story concept, ect... I followed this with sketches and then a grey box. I was not able to find a simple way to grey box with the creation kit, so my box was made of 1 floor piece, 1 rock, 1 pillar, and one box. Afterwords, I brought in some models, to check spacing and sizing, and then I started to fill the level with set pieces. The level was modified and resized to fit the modular pieces, and a few side rooms and loot rooms were attached as new pieces were discovered.

After this, I filled the space with game assets including placing all of the containers, set dressing, and terrain. I added junk/cluttter during a second pass while I tweaked and shifted larger assets to make better paths and fill empty spaces. After this I grouped and placed enemies based on the expected pace of the dungeon and the number of enemies that could be handled if a whole room was agroed. The next pass was for loot; I filled all of the boxes and containers as well as added specific item drops to the special enemies I had added. Next, I added AI paths, idles, and actions so that the enemies would act correctly if the player stealthed into the area. Finally, I played through the level a few times and corrected any mistakes I found during play. This included both physical issues such as seams, and balance issues such as agroing enemies from other rooms.