Level Planning: Cave Crusader

As the semester's work begins to pick up, we have been introduced to our main project: to design, model, and put together a fully-playable level. Together, my 3D Design I class has modified the winning level pitch and now we must design our own individual level using the world we've created. I began my brainstorming for story and game design by throwing down twenty different ideas, just to see what I could get out on paper:

1. You’re an over-eager college student majoring in archaeology, and you wanted to be the first one onsite, so you snuck into an unprotected area and found the cave.
2. Gating mechanism could be an upper area that’s closer to the surface, blocked by a door.
3. What if the key to finishing the level is to fashion together escape tools from what’s lying around?
4. You’re a cave explorer on a TV show for something like national geographic. You and your small team broke through a thin wall leading to this area of the cave and are now the first to traverse through it.
5. Another gating mechanism could be a puzzle at the beginning that requires statuette placement later on, railroading the player down a specific path.
6. There could be enormous doors that lead to the meteor, and are only unlocked when a puzzle is solved.
7. What if the player started on a level looking down onto the meteor, and must travel downwards before finding a way out?
8. What if there are some cracks in the “ceiling” that let in slivers of light to help guide the player?
9. What if you have to manually dig your way out of the cave, after finding ground that’s higher up?
10. What if the key is the meteor itself? You have to solve a timed puzzle on the meteor in order to “activate” the area and get yourself out.
11. You are a convict attempting to escape prison via the sewage tunnels. A small earthquake occurs, dumping you into this ridiculous awe-inspiring cave.
12. What if the glow worm lanterns were arranged in a certain order to help the player solve a puzzle?
13. If there is a meteor, there should be a couple of extra, smaller pieces scattered around. Perhaps the other sections are centered around these smaller pieces.
14. What if you have to find different pieces and put the meteor back together in order to cause a reaction that will let you escape?
15. What if the door at the end leads to a wall of rock? What if there is no escape, and the end is just the player accepting their inevitable death?
16. What if the player has to find something to take with them, and solving a puzzle leads them to the object before they must escape?
17. What if the meteor was imbedded in the door? Puzzle and escape route in one place.
18. What if the basalt growth/stalactites are blocking an area, and you have to break them down?
19. What if the key is an actually key that has been overtaken by basalt growth, and you have to “deactivate” the meteor in order to reverse the rock formation?
20. What if the meteorites change color to indicate a “reversal” method to the radiation?

After carefully taking these into consideration, I've looped quite a few into a single story. I really enjoyed the possibility for humor with the TV show host idea (#4), so I went with that for my story; my inspiration being the TV show River Monsters and its intriguing host Jeremy Wade. I also looped together ideas #2, #7, #9, #13, and #20 to help inform my map design, gating mechanisms, and "puzzle".

Once the map of the level was done, I continued onwards to write a script that would help guide the player through the level, as well as give some personality to the player's character: Ollie Moran, host of the hit TV show Cave Crusader.

The full script can be found ----> Here!

Now that the story was written and I had a clear idea of what the map would look like, it was time to draw up some level boards for possible screenshots:

And you can't create a world without using reference! As the level takes place deep within a cave, there are some interesting opportunities for lighting and ways to lead the player around. Additionally, one of the main features of the cave are the intriguing basalt walls, which require reference as well. Here are some photos that I found along the way:

I am very excited to see where this level will go, it'll be quite the learning experience!