Level Designer
Made in October 2021
(1 month project)
Solo project
Action-stealth first person shooter
Created with Far Cry's 4 map editor
Themes: Stealth | Assassination | Tactic
Goal: Made with Far Cry's 4 map editor, the player's goal mission is to eliminate all the enemies without letting the alarm to be triggered.
Therefore, the player must complete this mission in a stealth way, avoiding being detected by the enemies and killing them silently.
Dhaulagiri
Screenshots
Concept
Made with the use of Far Cry's 4 map editor, Dhaulagiri is a level I created in a month.
The player's goal is simple: eliminate all the enemies present in the area without letting the alarm to be triggered.
Compared to Monastery's snare (another level design project I made that you can see right here) which focuses on an offense approach, this mission focuses more on a stealthier one. Based on an "outpost" game mode, the player must observe well his surroundings to understand how to use the environment at his advantage, as well as define clear action plans in order to take down the targets without letting a chance for them to detect his presence.
The map is divided in three main areas. From one area to the next, the number of enemies, as well as the number of alarms raise in order to improve the difficulty. The encountered enemies' archetypes also change to harder ones to complicate the player's tasks. Each area also offers multiple pathways so the player can clearly define his plan of action to undertake.
Feel free to have a look at my level design presentation to have more details about my intentions, right above if you haven't taken a look at it yet!
What I've learned...
This level was the first one I designed with a stealthy intention approach. Inspired by the Far Cry series outposts,
I carefully observed some of their layouts to better understand how should I play with the environment space, the props'/covers' locations, the enemies' locations/patrols and so on... to carefully allow the player to maintain control most of the time of the situations encountered. Working for the first time on a stealth map was a pleasing experience.
Every possible pathway that the player could take needed to be cleary thought, designed and balanced. Even if the design of this level is quite linear (the player moves from one area to the next), the multipath approach in this level wants to give different ways to the player to complete the mission, allowing the player to experiment with any of the game systems at his disposal. I tried to experiment with this level the freedom for the player to live his own playthrough story of the level, just as in the Dishonored series.
Keeping the Far Cry's identity in terms of design intentions, while using its existing game mechanics was an interesting challenge to handle. I tried to keep the idea of giving to the player a variety of methods to approach this mission (covers to use to avoid gunfights, melee takedowns from above or up-close, highlight enemies using the digital camera to more carefully follow their patrols...).