Tutorial Levels – A handy thing

This past week, group number 5 have been heavy at work on the upcoming ALPHA-version of our Stealth-game, With Intent. With he deadline creeping closer every minute; Theodor Gerhamn and I have been doing some work on a tutorial level. Our tutorial level will (If people react the way we hope) teach the player how to use the controls without the need of excessive handholding, giving the player a better feeling of immersion.

Above is the first concept image of the level, made by Theodor. My job has been to translate this into a to-scale image which will show us exactly where to place furniture, which furniture we will use, aswell as which background-image we will use for the different floorings.

Why am I not posting that? Well, it still needs a bit of work, so that it’s up to snuff for the design document.

Here’s a walthrough on what the player will feel when he/she boots up the game for the first time:

– You’ll be place inside an empty room, void of people. In here, hopefully, players will either try to move using WASD or the arrowkeys. This can be done safely as the closest guard is placed in the corridor nearby. While walking around for a bit, the player should notice the guard in the corridor (Either through the guards footsteps or seeing his flashlight). If the player walks within the guards Line of Sight, he will be shot and killed, teaching the player to avoid guards and flashlights.

– When the player makes his way through to ‘Hall 2′, he will encounter a very narrow space. In this space, we will (almost) force the player to walk into a piece of furniture. Doing this, he will notice that the furniture gives off the same sound-ripples as the guard did when he was walking. This will hint at the player that, maybe, walking into objects is a bad idea.

– When the player has arrived at Room 2, he will see two flashlights in the corridor, pointing towards him. This, being the only way he can progress, will force players to use sprint to avoid the guards and make it into the next room. We’ve been thinking a bit about how we can show the player that Shift makes you sprint, but we’re still thinking about a solution to that.

– In the last room, ‘Room 4′, we show the player that even if a door is locked; That does not mean that it’s inaccessible; You can open it with the right key! If the door is glowing red (as in the this case) You’ll need a red key. We illustrate this simply by putting a red key near to door for the player to pick up and use.

Hopefully we’ll have a playable and interesting ALPHA to show people on the coming friday.

Thank you for reading!