Crossroads station
The Project - Crossroads Station
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My Roles: Level Designer, Gameplay Designer
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Time: 2 Months
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Team size: 6
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Tools: Unity
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Date: 2020
About:
Crossroads station is a high-intensity third-person parkour runner inspired by the classic Mirror's Edge series.
The goal of the game:
Crossroads station is a time trial based competition game with combat elements. Get through the level as fast as possible to gain a good spot at the leaderboard.
Gameplay Design
Flow
Excitement
Flow:
The player should be encouraged to be at top speed. The combat is designed around being fast and mobile and the levels should work to stay smooth and fast while not exhausting the player.
Excitement:
The actions the player takes should feel cool and action packed, Jumping over large pits and while being shot at or running across a wall with deadly lazers under. The controls and level should encourage the player to take risks.
Level Design
The second level Is built to feel bigger then it is to limit the resources required to build. The map should not have to be big, just give the illusion of it.​
Illusion of grandeur
Design pillars​
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Verticality
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Contrast
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Pacing
Working with these pillars I intended to create a level that felt bigger then it is. To achieve this I worked with contrasting views too build a sense of scale and making sure the levels offered a pace that felt natural and interesting.
Ventilation shaft
To keep the pacing up I designed around two ideas.
Keep each possible route easy to identify and add danger and challenges to that are made easier by running.
Mixing fast straight routes with multiple ways to get past obstacles makes the area feel more interesting while visually breaking up the silhouettes of the straight walls.
By blocking the view of other paths when you've chosen one I could make them feel more unique. By being consistent with the props I used to indicate good wall-run locations I tried to make it easy for the player to identify good routes.
To help the encourage players to not hesitate I tried to make sure that they had a path to take regardless of the direction they came in from.
I had the end of the tunnel narrow as to better amplify the contrast of the upcoming area and too draw the players attention to the right to help them keep their momentum as they rush out.
Elevator
Comming out of the tunnel the player is presented with the rest of the level. I raised the rest of the level to work make the player feel smaller and thus the map larger.
Pulling back I used this area to ease up on the intensity, keeping the lead up to the elevator fairly simple. Setting the "solution" on the right side of the catwalk I could set up a view that gave the player a glimpse of what was to come.
I built the level with a lot of verticality in mind. This allowed me to have the level loop in and out of itself creating more gameplay from a smaller amount of pieces.
The "elevator" section is there to slow down the pace and help the player gain som hight. The intensity lowers a bit but at the same time the technical skill to keep your speed increases
Center
An area the player comes back to several times, a large metal structure that dominates the map. Placed in the center it's meant to be a progress meter. Everytime you get back to it you are slight closer the top and the end of the level.
I used yellow as a guiding color through out the level. having yellow pipes bend around corners to help out with sharp turns.
The level is populated with enemies that patrol different platforms. The combat zones I created are built to not encourage prolonged combat but quick hit and runs.
Having it in the center allowed players to approach the structure from different angles during the level. This added some variety without drastically changing the composition of the scene. This with in combination with the mix of enclosed and open areas were intended to make everything feel bigger.
Maintenance
Fast and straight to the point. The maintenance area is simple in it's challenge however, it's not as clear in it's opportunities. Keepin the alt-paths more discrete I wanted to reward more experienced players and those who experiment.
Being consistent through out the level with easier faster paths being followed by technically harder slower paths was important. The player should get into the flow quickly.
Being consistent also made it easier to build alternative paths. An experienced player would look for these paths right away.
Top cap
Looking down at the rest of the level the top cap this area is intended to be both hard and fast. The layout snakes through the map reinforcing the distance traveled.