Please share with us anything you’ve created as part of designing and building your level! And if you have any questions, here is a good place to ask.
Are you referromg to the tutorial in Godot? Just downloaded it and bookmarking your page. I need to finish the 2D CYOA game tutorial first then I’ll try that. 3D seems hard to do.
Nope, I am referring to the new Unity 3D Game Kit course. At this stage its only available in the Humble Bundle we are part of.
Is there a way to be able to look at the drop ship and have a text pop up saying “Still unable to achieve lift off”?
Yep, but with the tools we have it would need to be based upon the player’s location, not where they are looking. So if you made the player run in a particular direction where the ship was in front of them and put a text trigger volume in a place they have to run through then it could totally work.
1 Like
Had trouble uploading my “playthrough” videos, so have a few screenies of my finished level instead. It was massive fun working on this!
The idea is that the player is a scavenger/trader travelling to various planets to find goods to sell. While on this particular planet, they recieve a distress call from their friend Maggie and set off to find her. There’s an InfoZone at the very start mentioning the distress beacon leading Ellen here, but I think my screenie was taken before it triggered.
Start/spawn area. There’s a small path to the left, and the obvious rock arch ahead.
A big wall prevents her from reaching Maggie’s downed ship.
Stepping on all the pressure pads activates a platform, enabling her to get atop the wall.
Past the wall, can choose to activate a pressure pad behind these (moving, contact damager) traps…
…and another pad in this little forest. Notice the ambushing spitters…
…which activates these platforms, allowing her to get past the acid safely.
Or she can bypass those and just go through this enemy-heavy area instead. Choices!
Either way, she makes it to Maggie’s ship. End of level!
Level overview. There’s a small area near the top left pond where the player could choose to fight a few optional chompers for a health crate, and another near the low left lake.
2 Likes
Nice! This is so good, thanks for sharing.
2 Likes
Hope Video works. Still not complete but its going on. Text Boxes are missing, because im still not sure of the story. And sadly cant find the death send command on grenadier, so i had to work around this idea.
But it makes super fun to buil up.
4 Likes
I was wondering if you have some hints for how you think op interesting themes for games?
For me it turned out rather simple and plain 
Who? Spacemarine woman
Where? On a foreign planet
Goal? To find the the location of the distress signal
Enemy? The beings on the planet.
1 Like
Hi. Whilst not specifically just for Game Design, when I was studying play/script writing, we were often told to justify why a character exists in a scene, or why the scene itself exists.
Asking a lot of the ‘W’ questions (Why, what, when, etc) about your scene and your player could possibly help you figure out and dig deeper towards their motivation, and help with how you frame a level, or how you intend to go forward with the levels story arc.
-
For example, if your character is a Spacemarine Woman, why has she chosen that path? Did she always want to be a Spacemarine and has been training her whole life for this, or does she come from an area where all students at a certain age get automatically enlisted whether they want to or not. Perhaps she joined only because her friends did, and they have a friendly rivalry together where they try to outdo each other. As an example, this could play into a jumping puzzle in your level where your player could comment that if she doesn’t make it to the other side, her friends will never let her live it down.
-
As for the Where, it’s worth thinking about the significance of the place. Is it a planet that is currently at war with the players home planet? Is she a fresh recruit, and all new recruits get sent to this planet to test their skills like in a training program? Did she get in trouble with her commander, and has been sent to this ‘dump of a planet’ on a menial mission as way of punishment. It can shape the way that the character also thinks about their environment at the present.
-
For the goal, are there any nuggets of information that the distress signal can symbolize for the player. Are her team actively searching for someone of importance, and they think that this could be a lead? Were they finishing another mission when suddenly the players ship became aware of this distress signal? Perhaps an important person in the players life went missing years ago, and they always answer similar distress signals with the hope that one of these days it will be that person?
-
And if the ‘beings on the planet’ are the enemies for the player, why is this so? Are they a known menace and threat to the players home planet? Did the player lose someone dear to them as a result of these enemies? Have they only recently become an enemy or a threat? If so, what was the turning point for this change? Is she just following orders and is actually quite fascinated, or doesn’t quite understand the extent of the enemies threat other then what her superiors have told her? Are they only the enemy because she’s scared of them?
None of these suggestions are things are needed to create a compelling gameplay experience, but I hope that it has given something to think about anyway. 
Good luck with your Game and level Designing.
1 Like
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
Just getting started with my level, but a quick share of the scenario… or hero Ellen has found herself crash landed on an alien planet. Her ship, as you can see, is toast. (I cheated, and just streched and moved the engine flame particles. This actually looks pretty cool in motion). She’ll have to make her way and hope to find another way off planet.
I love sci-fi and exploring other planets, so this should be fun:
- Who- A reconnaissance specialist scouting a newly discovered planet for signs of intelligent life.
- Where- Xenon-IV (or some other weird planet name), an uncharted, vegetated planet.
- Goal- Find evidence of intelligent life, and escape alive!
- Conflict- Decaying environment and feral creatures (just ripped straight off from Rick
)
I have just added a few pieces of geometry into my new scene like some ridges and a dropship. When I run it the character, Ellen, is able to run through them. This didn’t happen in the sandbox lessons.
I noticed that all the geometry in the sandbox had colliders - mesh or box. I tried to add mesh colliders to my geometry in my new scene, but it still didn’t work.
Any ideas on what could be wrong?
Who: A wanted criminal of the Galactic Federation in search of her father
Where: A remote moon where my father’s ship was last found
Goal: To find her father’s ship
Obstacles: Dangerous monsters