Big Game Project: Open Circuit: Week 1

All right! Big Game Project, finally.

If you need any information about the project, you can read my vertical slice. Let’s get started!

Since I am one of the happily designated level designers. I started off sketching out parts of the first level right away.

Our level structure is made up of about 5 “special areas” or “skate-parks”, spread out in a large level. The environment that isn’t special areas are mostly there to guide the player to the nearest one. So I think it was a good idea to start off designing those special areas first.

During the week I got some ideas of interesting places to use our mechanics in:

A crater area: where you jump from crater to crater, using mainly the “pump”-mechanic.

An old water park: Containing lots of pools, waterslides and half pipe-trails.

A subway: Lots of boosts and zig-zagging. The player will ride between, inside and on top of trains. I personally hope that we can get a train running, giving the player a boost out of the subway.

A mountain pass: Here you will ride along a mountain wall, this area will contain lots of wallruns. I got some inspiration from the scene in “Mickey Mouse goes camping” (or what it’s really called), where the trailer rides down the mountain path. This might not ring a bell amongst all but if it does; you know what feeling I want.

In this game I think it’s more important to design special areas after an aestheric rather than just cool stuff to see or ride in.

So in the first part of the week I just sketched out how these parts could look, lots of theory work. Then I jumped straight in to Unity, trying to create the mountain pass area, only to find it extremely difficult to create these environments only from an idea and a sketch.

We decided to block out these special areas in 3Ds Max instead, so that we could move ramps and walls as we wanted, trying to get an idea of scope and what assets we are going to need.

Water-park 3D concept made in 3Ds max (the green pellets are markers for hills)

By the end of the week, all of the mentioned special areas were blocked out in 3Ds Max, ready to be projected into Unity. It will take a lot of time to make everything smooth and “rideable”. We will probably have to change a lot so that it fits the player movement and speed. I will be in New York next week so I’m not sure how much I will be able to work then.