Featured Projects
No Comments
By designerdougm
On 24, Feb 2012 | No Comments | In Game Design Level Design | By designerdougm
Wastelands
A two week solo project that re-imagined the first level of Blizzard’s original StarCraft campaign using the Galaxy Editor, Wastelands demonstrates my ability to work with proprietary design tools and previously established intellectual properties.
Working in this environment allowed me to focus solely on exploring and honing my level design skills. Though the much beloved original 1998 release served as my guide, I was free to re-construct the from the ground up creating completely new and unique experiences.
Complete Adaptation
During this project I worked through the lens of Blizzard’s design philosophies, a necessity when recreating content from one of their most beloved series. Wastelands was a chance for me to shine at what I do best; crafting tight, polished experiences.
- StarCraft II’s Wings of Liberty campaign was a benchmark for the the kind of quality I wanted to achieve.
- The project was an opportunity to challenge myself and grow as a level designer.
- Due to an overwhelming amount of amazing community feedback I was able to iterate quickly.
- Development time was about two weeks, at which point Wastelands was largely feature complete.
- This was my first experience with the Galaxy Editor and the two week development time does include learning the editor.
Community Reception
From the very beginning the project received a fantastic reception from fellow StarCraft II mod developers over at SC2Mapster.com. It also continues to earn a steady stream of downloads from fans over at Curse.com, where it has received over a thousand downloads and held a spot on the site’s featured new maps panel for over two months.
“I must say I’m quite amazed on how good of quality the missions are, so far into this campaign.” -frozen87“Great re-imagining of the first game’s campaign really enjoyed the map, it was very polished. The briefing section was fantastic. The mission was entertaining and kept me enthralled the whole way through.” -Debe2233“Man, you should work with blizzard, this was just awesome/perfect. No Bugs… and the little things were also just awesome.” -Terminazor
In-depth Design Decisions
Although the level design in Wastelands is entirely new, the project is a retelling of the original StarCraft’s story, and that brings with it a lot of unique paradigms. I had to keep the authorial intent of the original level in mind, including:
- What narrative elements were being conveyed.
- The overall mood and ambiance of the level.
- Where the level fit into the overarching campaign structure.
The original StarCraft was an off-the-shelf PC RTS in the late nineties. If you had installed the game onto your hard drive, you were going to play through at least a few levels before deciding whether or not the game was worth your time. Blizzard had no need to create a strong hook for the player.
- Wastelands’ original gameplay arc is a 45 degree ramp declining from the get go.
- The most interesting moment in the level is at the very beginning, when there’s a whole unknown world out there to explore.
- After recruiting a hero unit and dispatching a few stray enemies the level ends abruptly after putting the player through a tedious base building tutorial.
- The gameplay arc is the reverse of a normal RTS level, where building the army comes first.
By attempting to teach the player all of the game’s mechanics in one mission the level has so much to cover that it can’t really squeeze in any sort of challenge without potentially overwhelming the player or making the level unnecessarily long. With that in mind I knew I had to reduce the level down to only a few mechanics.
- Seeing as the narrative is an exodus from civilization, unit control was the obvious choice over base construction.
- By focusing only on unit control (move, attack, etc.) I was able to craft a much more focused experience.
- I allowed the player to develop their skills by putting them to use, not by practicing them inside of a vacuum.
- The mission is much better suited for adaptation to multiple difficulty levels.
- All four campaign difficulty settings have been implemented, featuring adjustments to stats, mechanics and hand-holding where necessary.
- The level features a much stronger gameplay arc and includes bonus objectives, player choices and introduces the player to unit abilities.
I wanted the player to feel like they were playing the original StarCraft, but I wanted the mission to play like the kind of polished experience fans have come to expect from the StarCraft II team.
- The narrative plays out much the same as its predecessor.
- The gameplay however is completely new and fresh.
- More focused gameplay allows for more exposition which allows me to hook the player into the experience.
The final decision for the project was to create an escort mission where the player would be responsible for defending an armored personnel carrier filled with civilians. An escort mission is a dangerous choice given their propensity for being frustrating affairs, but I was nothing if not motivated by the challenge. I am confident that the pacing, scripted events and all of the other pieces have come together to form an experience that hooks the player in and keeps them engaged from start to finish.
