Took a quick dive into some short tutorials from Unreal on how to get started on level design. There were a lot of new things I learned particularly with how to use geometry to create buildings that you can both add and subtract from. So even with a wall built you are able to poke holes into it to create space for a window or a door. A lot of the starting content Unreal supplies is very useful when it comes to developing a level. I’ll have to get more assets later, and probably buy them off the marketplace, or try and make my own since I know how to model a little bit. As far as level design goes I know I wanna keep it simple with enough detail.
The finished product of the tutorial was a small office space with nice supports and a glass divider with a sliding door, unfortunately with my dark lighting it was hard to see the glass. I improved the torches I made last time and got their lights to flicker. It looks a bit weird because the shadow doesn’t move with the flames, but that’s because the shadows are pre-rendered. From here I’m going to start conceptualizing the first level in its entirety. I know I want the boss and the level to be very well connected. I’ll start with drawing the layout, and then maybe the clues or lore for the boss. I still have to figure out what I want the exploration gameplay to be like.
Other than that I wanted to find more inspiration from indie games and especially indie studios. I watched some episodes of a documentary from noclip where they focused on the development of Hades, a game by Supergiant.
Supergiant is a studio I have admired for many years now. They made Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, and now Hades. I’ve played all of them but never actually finished them. There were many reasons I never completed the games, mostly because of timing and life in general. I’ve always loved their art style, the music, the gameplay, and their game design. They’re not an indie dev that’s for sure, but as far as indie studios go, they are one of the best in the world. It is very inspiring to watch how they work, and how passionate they are about creating games. As far as I could tell every employee at Supergiant loves their jobs and absolutely loves putting their all into the game they are developing. It really shows, currently I am playing Hades, and everything about it is amazing. I was never a big fan of rouge-like/lite games, but it has been the exception for me.
From what I’ve watched so far what I can take from their work ethic and creative process is to take things slow, and don’t put too much focus on creating new things, instead think about what you have to polish it when you can. It’s tempting to keep trying to make a game more exciting, sometimes it’s better to improve on what you already have and see where you can go from there.
I’ll continue watching more documentaries on indie studios since it’s so inspiring and heart-warming to watch people do what they love.
GoldenGratus Games 