A Warm Winter

A Warm Winter is an adventure game where players play as a Snowman to look for his missing creator. Players are able to interact with objects as well as throw snowballs at enemies and in-game objects

During this project, I was tasked with designing the Levels of the game as well as working with the environmental artist on the lighting of each level.

Level Design - Town Level

The first level that I was in charge of creating was the Town. Players can explore the level by walking around and interacting to find more clues about their missing creator's location.

We began by segmenting the area into five main sections, placing the end goal on the opposite side from where the player would enter the draft, as shown below. However, this approach resulted in the path for the goal being too linear, potentially causing players to bypass all other areas. Therefore, when we transitioned to Unity, we opted to relocate the Forest Area Entrance to the bottom-right corner of the map.

Central Plaza

Residential Area 1

Elevated Residential Area

Residential Area 2

Residential Area 3

To Forest

Player Enter

Sketch

Unity Prototype 1

Central Plaza

Residential Area 1

Elevated Residential Area

Residential Area 2

Residential Area 3

Player Enter

To Forest

Upon completing the prototype, we realised that the lighting was too dark, so to further improve it, we decided to change the lighting while trying to keep the cool and calming tone that we wanted.

After our second prototype, we also noticed the lack of landmarks to help players navigate their way through the map, so we added some landmarks such as the bulletin board, fountain and cliff view. In the final version, we also added in some lighting from the elevated residential area to help add more mood.

Additionally, we decided that having the size of the Central Plaza be smaller was a better idea so that the entire plaza will be visible to the player the moment they enter so that they will have a better sense of space.

Unity Prototype 2

Final

Upon final playtesting, we managed to achieve the intended result of players exploring the entire map to complete the quest given by NPCs while avoiding the enemies by distracting them with their pet dogs. All these then help to give the players more information about their final goal and eventually leads them to the next level.

Level Design - Forest Level

The other level I helped to design is the Forest Level. The level had multiple pathways, some just looping back to the main road, others leading to a dead end.

In the first Iteration, the level was meant to have many branching paths that led to a large clearing, but after getting some feedback from both playtesting sessions and lecturers, my team and I concluded that the map was too big, thus, we decided to reduce the size of the large clearing and have the branching path be wider but shorter.

Large Clearing

Branching Path

First Iteration

Branching Path

Clearing

Second Iteration

After the second iteration, I realised the map was relatively dark and visually lacking, so I requested some mushroom sprites from our artist and placed them around the level with some lights attached to help create some atmosphere and use the mushrooms to guide the player. The final look and feel can be seen in the video below.

Forest Level Gameplay Video

Overview and Reflections

Overall, just from this level alone, I've learned how to create a level that will not disorientate and seamlessly guide the player to the objective with the use of landmarks, minor quest detours and lighting.