Once and for All

First Person Action Adventure
Singleplayer
Unreal Engine 5
Solo Developed
Iterated upon multiple playtests
Assets used: Blockout Tool, UltraDynamicSky, Posed People for ArchViz, and Interactive Open World Foliage

In the future the government has taken over Eternity City. You are an ex-rebel leader who has lost the will to fight until you got a lead that might just give the city the chance it needs to end this never ending oppression.

Goals

World Driven Narrative

Players should be exploring spaces and learning about the story through those spaces

Half Life 2

Refine my Blockout Workflow

I want to really practice working on my process going from roughout to final polish in my blockouts

Practice Driving Player Feeling

Throughout development I wanted to work on creating moments that help sell a feeling that I am trying to make the player feel

Before and After Overview

Roughout

Blockout Iterations

Level Flow

Beat 1: Subway Arrival

Beat 4: Stealth Combat in the Alley

Final Blockout Pass

Beat 2: Explore Main Courtyard

Beat 5: Find way to Sewers

Beat 7: Solve Sewer Puzzle

Technique Highlights

My approach: I used a lot of npcs to help communicate story to the player which was super helpful with the theme of the level being oppression.

Since I am trying to create this world I try to make all the environmental storytelling look natural.

Moving Train at the beginning of the level

Environmental Storytelling

Beat 3: Platform Across Districts

Vistas and Goal Reinforcement

My approach: I use vistas like this to frame and remind the player of what their goal is throughout the level.

I try to highlight the landmarks importance by keeping it in front of you and the biggest building on the screen. You are also traveling towards it for most of the level until you reach the sewers.

My approach: I create spaces that make the player feel more claustrophobic then open it up into a bigger space with a clear vista and goal

This kind of technique allows me to enhance the feeling of walking into the next room.

Funnel to Reveal

Beat 6: Explore Sewers

Playtesting & Iterations

Main Courtyard Space

Gameplay & Scripting

Sequencers

I used sequencers a lot for all the different elements that have movement in my level like the train that you start on at the beginning of the level.

Police Blockade moment in Main Courtyard

Security Cameras

I wanted to add more world building elements to make the player feel like they were under that feeling of oppression just like the city and security cameras were the perfect thing.

Back to Top

Giant Sewer Door

Preproduction

I spent a lot of time ideating on ideas and trying to figure out what this world that I was creating would look like.

Boneworks

Inspiration

While in the ideation phase I do research on analyzing games that I try to base my level off of

Cyberpunk 2077

After

Solution

Knowing all of this I decided to plan out the layout of the space by giving the player a few different options in how they can tackle this challenge.

I decided that the space would be a dirty alleyway that has a bar on the side. Some enemies were having drinks and some were trying to keep watch and were serious about their job as policeman.

Before

Feedback

After

After

Solution

Alleyway Combat Space

Originally the part of the level was supposed to be a more linearly structured space that had an immediate golden path to follow but instead I wanted to give the player a little more time to explore and investigate what was going on in the level. With knowing this I turned the space into a hub space.