Tempe Games

 Yo!  This week I wanted to talk about my thought process doing a top-down LDD for my upcoming immersive sim level. In the past, I've always done perspective maps for levels, I think because elevation is something I always like to emphasize. It can be harder to show elevation using a top-down map, especially if there's content on both floors. That being said, after my last project, I got the feedback that a top-down LDD is much better, because it's faster to iterate and overall less time consuming. So, I tried making a top down map.  This level doesn't have too much overlapping play area, so that's good. The level is split into two main halves- the first is a clean public area, and the second is a dirtier backroom. The goal of the first area is to get to the backroom, and from there, the player needs to escort a tram to the levels exit, which will require manipulating a variety of switches.  In this situation, I'm designing a level for a game I didn't  desig...

Yo!  This weekend, I LDD'd and Whiteboxed a 'fort' for our capstone game, Dillo's Dilemma. In this game, you play as Dillo, an armadillo, who can roll around and use mechanical devices resembling pinball parts (called PINGAS) to quickly move around. The levels are relatively open to explore, and contain 4 'forts', which are bases built by evil rats to hold captured armadillos. Each fort is basically a speed challenge, where Dillo must use the PINGAS and his rolling movement to free each armadillo before he's captured by the rats himself. The main goal of the game is to clear each of these forts, and that's exactly what I tried my hand at designing! For reference, here's an early example of what I imagined a fort could look like.  Some of the terms are outdated, and the design has changed a bit, but this still gets a bit of the idea across. The idea here is for the player to have any number of potential solutions to this problem- They have to design t...

 Yo!  Last semester I did some work for an upcoming indie immersive sim being made by a small team. I was asked to build a level for showcase purposes- I love immersive sims, so I agreed to help right away! I'm not sure how much of the story the team would like disclosed, so I'll just say it's a post-apocalyptic immersive sim taking place on a derelict space station. Classic, right? My level in particular is where the player gets a means of transportation around the station- a futuristic, double-decker tram. Thus, my level is the tram station with the included repair yard.  For this level, I had a pretty strict objective and a very short time limit. My objective was just to showcase the game's gameplay at the state it existed. It's all pretty early in development, but we wanted it to look nice too. As a result, I was both designing the level from a practical angle and making props and art so it wasn't unsightly. Thankfully, the art-style the team favored was low...