"Gas Facility" - AvP2 - hobby singleplayer level
"What Mr. Badowsky has created here is a gem of a single-player level. With everything from cut-scenes to stupid scientists to spiffy action music, the author has given us a nifty little level to enjoy during those brief moments when we aren't playing multi-player." - PlanetAVP (Oct 04)
) |
) |
) |
This is an Aliens Versus Predator 2 level I made in 2004 using DEdit for the Talon Engine. It is a singleplayer level based in a fictional Weyland-Yutani facility that had been trying to convert the Aliens' acidic blood into weaponry for warfare.
The architecture was heavily inspired by the cool Forerunner geometry from the original Halo, I absolutely loved it and wanted to create something with the same sensibilities, but also trying not to stray too far from the Weyland-Yutani style established in the 'Aliens' movie.
As a Designer, I tend to have a huge bias towards the 'feel'. Towards Story and Cinematic moments. I feel this comes from my love of other media and a burning desire to really immerse players in a cinematic atmosphere.
For this reason, I tried to pace this level similarly to the opening few levels of the retail AvP2 Marine campaign. This meant the first third of the level is full of scares and false-starts; following a scientist who ends up crushed by boulders, and then returning to find the scientists that sent you both there have fallen prey to something unseen that could very well still be in the same room...
I also wanted to play on people's natural fears, so for example, I have always personally felt unsettled in reality and in games wading knee-deep in unclear water. There is the element of the unknown and a fear from movies like 'Jaws' which is just really powerful. To that end, I added a scene in which a scientist wading through a flooded corridor is suddenly dragged under as players approach him. The icing on the cake, I feel, is the fact his body floats to the surface in the next room a few metres in front of players leading them to further worry about just what is in the room with them out of sight, under the water.
I also wanted to have cinematics; a cool 'dropship landing' intro with Marines giving players their mission, and also an outro - the facility self-destructing - as a nice tail-end reward.
I also enjoyed using the level design tenet of 'seeing another area before you can reach it' - not only does this occur several times during the level with catwalks passing above previous rooms, but the entire level actually ends with players exiting the facility via a ventilation system into the same valley they started the level in.
I learnt a lot whilst making this level, particularly on the technical side; a lot of the geometry was created using a feature in DEdit whereby the Designer could break apart brushes and work with single-sided geometry. This allowed the creation of much more complex shapes, akin to 3D Modelling software, although it also became difficult to handle when geometry became complex, without endangering performance.