Scraps!
-Avery’s Harbor-
Introduction
Avery’s Harbor was my level addition to my team’s game design version of Scraps!.
I was still fairly new with the Unity engine at the time, but nevertheless was able to enjoy working with terrain modeling, lighting settings and placements, and of course scripted progression related events with a slight focus on the “string of pearls” style level design.
The theme of the game itself was dictated, but the environmental setting was of my choosing, in which I chose a geographical vision akin to the sites of where I grew up as a child. Raised along the Gulf of Mexico near a naval base and a port town where the water was always the goal for most people, my hometown immediately came to mind to showcase a downtrodden scene of a poisoned harbor with a derelict tanker and of course sand and boats.
I used Google Maps to create my map layout, complete with a reference legend for map markers and images with step by step progression text so as to keep me on track and the intention of the location always at the forefront of its design. Once I was satisfied with my map, I used the map itself as a superimposed image within the Unity Engine and scaled to standard proportions of our player character, and then built the map with those dimensions.
The Concept
The intent of my level was to to create a “string of pearls” style map with 4 distinct sections: The Front Gate, The Beach, The Boat Traversal and finally The Tanker itself. I wanted to create a set of “keys” which required some form of engagement, either through exploration, minor skill requirement, or puzzle solving. After the player had completed the game’s objective, I wanted to provide some sort of end game flourish via escaping from the Tanker itself in style, in a movie fashion.
Below, I outline each section and my thoughts on them!
The Front Gate
This would be the entry point from the previous level to my own. I wanted to provide two very clear points of reference to the player: One being the main goal for the player which was the Tanker in the far distant view, and two being the immediate physical obstacle blocking the player’s path forward, which was the front gate.
To start off light, I wanted the player to be able to progress with just doing a bit of exploring, specifically the guard house in front of the gate. Inside was the key that unlocked the gate, but also lockers that could be opened, with one containing a collectible. In the small forested section slightly off to the left of the guardhouse, yet another collectible waited for the player.
The Beach
After passing through the gate, I wanted to present another blocked passage in the metaphorical sense that they would need 3 batteries to power the motorized boats within the harbor itself. For these 3 keys I wanted to provide different ways to acquire each.
Storefronts
Located on the right side of the beach, I placed only one necessary battery on the roof of the middle building, and the intent was to cause the player to utilize their gravity device in placing a ladder to climb up the first building and place a wooden plank across the first two buildings to navigate to the battery.
For the ground floor of the second and third buildings, I wanted to place some minimal assets as well as collectibles to reward players who chose to explore, both my smashing a window as well as knocking down a weak wall.
Because this strip wrapped around the central body of water, this allowed players to have a better view of both the Tanker and the wooden platforms within the harbor, but still unable to reach them.
The Pile Ups
On the left strip of beach, I limited the amount of optional exploration and instead placed the other two batteries across from each other, with different aims to acquire both. I placed a car pile up with the cars slanted in such a way that there could be multiple paths for the player to try to jump climb this steep pile. Placed at the top of the cars was a required battery.
To the right of the pile up and past a raging bonfire were small boats also piled on top of each other in a scattered fashion. The battery this time was underneath the boats themselves, which caused the player to once again utilize the main mechanic of the game to move the boats out of the way to uncover the battery, thus allowing them to activate the mechanism that allowed the boats in the harbor to be turned on.
The harbor
The goal of the harbor(not including the tanker) was to provide the player with two possible routes, both leading to the same goal, but with different optional paths off of each. Once the boats had been activated, the player could hop into any boat and press a button that would cause the boat to begin moving back and forth from its anchor point and its destination. Instead of a one way trip, I wanted to allow the player to travel back for two reasons: First, to be able to try the other path as well if they so chose(to appease the explorer and reward them with optional paths off each), and second to allow them back to the beach just in case they happened to miss any collectibles and wished to do so.
Launch Mechanic
The challenge intended for the player was to utilize an ability of the game’s main mechanic, which not only allowed players to lift and move things with the Gravnull, but to also allow them to launch objects while holding and releasing with a different mouse button. The boats themselves would not be able to move along their fixated paths until the player had lifted the heavy plastic containers out of the toxic water and launched them at wooden debris in the way. Once all the debris had been broken along a path, the boats would then begin traveling back and forth.
A challenge befitting the last secret
As my level was last, I intended for the final secret object to be the most difficult to acquire, via a skill challenge. Branching off the left path of boats and platforms in the harbor, I placed several rusted barrels floating in the toxic water that let to a small hidden path of land that the player could acquire the secret. Being careful with the jumps and sensitivity to each barrel was the player’s major concern, but with the checkpoint system in place just before the start of the barrels, if the player did manage to reach the secret but died in the process of trying to make it back, they would simply be placed at the last platform, thus removing the frustration of having a hard return after being rewarded for their efforts.
The tanker
Being the end goal location for the player, I wanted something physically imposing, large and could be seen from the beginning of the level. Being a tanker, I wanted to provide multiple levels of engagement, so I divided the ship into two sections, the top deck and inside the tanker, which in of themselves would be divided into smaller sections of interest.
Top deck(intro)
Before being able to get inside the tanker proper, the player would have to explore the top deck first. With a comment from the protagonist, the player would learn of the intention to try to open the tanker doors located in the center of the top deck. At the front end of the tanker would be the intended exit in which the protagonist would comment that there would be no purpose to leave without the treasure inside, thus giving the player a preface to know where to go once they completed their goal. To the rear of the ship would be the bridge of the ship. Within the bridge itself would be a secondary objective for the player as well as the mechanism to cause the tanker doors to open, thus allowing access inside the tanker itself.
Bottom Deck(Front)
To the front of the ship was a simple skill challenge of crossing toxic water coming in from the bay. Crates were placed to enable to player to reach the front end with the switch. After playtesting several times to make sure that the crates were placed such a distance away from each other to be somewhat challenging and require the player to have a good semi running jump to reach each one. Once the player reached the other side and was able to hit the switch, they would then be able to head back to the center of the ship where their main objective awaited, a sealed high tech case containing an potential upgrade for their device, the GravNull. From there, the player could climb the stairs back up to the deck of the ship, and make a fun exit!
Bottom Deck(rear)
Within the tanker itself the player would need to activate two switches, one located at the rear and the other at the fore of the ship, to open the sealed container on the floor of the ship. To access the rear, I wanted the player to use both the crouch and the flashlight to navigate through and under clustered cargo boxes. Once the rear was reached and the switch activated several boxes were placed in such a way to allow players a quick easy route above the boxes back to the center of the ship.
Top Deck (outro)
As a last action, I wanted to give the players something that required little to no effort but provided them with some sort of fast paced reward. Instead ending the game immediately after retrieving the main goal for the game, I had instructions for the player to head to the front of the ship on the top deck, where they could escape off the ship in a fast free ride down a cable and back to a roof on the shore. I had initially intended to have the player zipline down, but as we were still new to the player controller we were using and the time crunch we had, I circumvented this by simply using the same script logic for my boats. I created a chair of sorts to hang on the cable, and the player would then activate the chair to be positioned inside and then enjoy the ride down.
lessons learned
My goal was to create a level that reminded me of my childhood home being near the water, as well as be intensely atmospheric. My fellow designers had created amazing levels alongside me but most consisted of indoor navigation, and I was compelled to work more with the terrain editor as well as the skybox to create something outside that would have a memorable impact.
As for the lessons I learned from this project, I learned to constantly think about scale when creating prop pieces that would not only compare to the player, but also everything else in the scene. I came to enjoy working deeply with the terrain editor both in changing the landscape as well as it’s visual, and learned the importance of colliders even more so when not working inside buildings with easily definable barriers. I also learned how to play with lighting in such a way that worked in tandem with the skybox lighting and created for me personally a desirable night time atmosphere. Working on breaking up a level into sections to be traversed by the player and having each have their own moment and hidden collectibles taught me to treat everything created as if to have a purpose.