How can i improve this level for my FPS

[ApexofReality]

This is my level feel free to ask questions and give tips!

[Murgilod]

It would help to know what you’re going for with the level and where it’s going to take place in the game. Right now it looks fairly linear and there’s really no indication of what the player will do other than follow the flow of the level. Are there any enemy encounters? Cutscenes? Platforming segments? There kinda needs to be a bit more information before any real feedback can be given.

[ApexofReality]

@Murgilod

It would help to know what you’re going for with the level and where it’s going to take place in the game. Right now it looks fairly linear and there’s really no indication of what the player will do other than follow the flow of the level. Are there any enemy encounters? Cutscenes? Platforming segments? There kinda needs to be a bit more information before any real feedback can be given.

It is the starting scene. Heres the full story:
It is year 2030 and a massive, costly Transatlantic War is happening. It all started when a massive, almost alien terrorist organization only known as Excalibur appeared out of nowhere. Far more advanced than any of the threats the US fought since the Nazis, Excalibur had mechs, plasma cannons, deadly and advanced nano warfare which is way ahead of the US’s own time, but it also had a deadly project that could almost instantly end the war unless the US bombed the facility that stored this secret project. Many US officials have also referred that there must be some weird experiment to the strange amounts of soldiers missing in the Battle of Sudan, the only issue is they don’t know what it is and its weaknesses. One of these soldiers is a man who only goes by Bora. During a US bombing operation the facility Bora was in was damaged but only lightly, and most of the communications were destroyed along with the piping of a strange material, however workers in the facility got right back to work on fixing. Bora’s cryogenic tube malfunctioned during this too causing it to open and let him go skipping a mind control part of the experiment. With no memory of what happened in the experiments done to him, Bora suddenly finds out he has power no human had ever really had and discovers the dirty truth behind this organization and the weakness behind the experiment.

[Murgilod]

Okay, you’ve told me the story, but you haven’t really elaborated on the things I asked. Is the player just going to walk through this level and see these things, or will the player be interacting with the level itself?

[ApexofReality]

@Murgilod

Okay, you’ve told me the story, but you haven’t really elaborated on the things I asked. Is the player just going to walk through this level and see these things, or will the player be interacting with the level itself?

There are going to be some security guards with pistols scattered around the rooms there might also be some keycards in the level too in the lab rooms

[ApexofReality]

@Murgilod

Okay, you’ve told me the story, but you haven’t really elaborated on the things I asked. Is the player just going to walk through this level and see these things, or will the player be interacting with the level itself?

Im going to try to improve the level too make it more non linear

[Habitablaba]

“linear” doesn’t always mean “bad” and “non-linear” does not always mean “better”. Make sure your level serves the story you are trying to tell. Making it labyrinthine just to keep it from being linear isn’t serving anything (unless, like, that’s the point of the story)

[ApexofReality]

@Habitablaba

“linear” doesn’t always mean “bad” and “non-linear” does not always mean “better”. Make sure your level serves the story you are trying to tell. Making it labyrinthine just to keep it from being linear isn’t serving anything (unless, like, that’s the point of the story)

Im sorta going for the Half Life 1 approach

[Habitablaba]

Gordon. Turn on the rotors.
Are you hearing me?
Gordon. Turn on… the rotors.

No but really, the start of Half Life 1 was super linear, and that was totally ok! They shoved a whole bunch of story at your right away and you could take it all in because you weren’t also worried about exploring the lab.

[Hyblademin]

It’s hard to tell how big it is, though based on guesses for the size of the stairwell it seems sort of small. You could probably only fit maybe two satisfying enemy encounters in there, or maybe only 1 if some of the rooms are used for atmosphere or story. I particularly feel that the vat room should be longer and wider, and would make for a good long-range shootout room if things like upper-level catwalks are added.

I don’t know what kind of shooter this will be, so it’s hard to say what features you should focus more on. Corridor style, battlefield style, infiltration? More tactical games rely on cover and interesting firing angles, and generally give the player less health. Maybe the main character is more tank-y and has a few super powers? Often the challenge then comes from awareness of enemy movements and balancing fighting/recovering, and using high-strength abilities at the best moments, and the map design has a heavier focus on making sure there’s enough room to move around and placing helpful items in interesting places. Some games have both of these things, like when the player is occasionally given a vehicle. Half-Life is largely about ammo management and strategic flexibility.

Walk through your level with no enemies, and note the places where the structure of the map raises your anticipation of an encounter, and put some bad guys there. You can artificially alter anticipation levels with music and sound to relax or discomfort the player at specific areas to improve pacing. Add and remove enemies, cover, power-ups to try to approach decent balance, then find people to play test it often.

Regardless of the style of shooter, I think there should be a few more ways to traverse the building, even if you go with linear progression. Things like side rooms and side corridors are appreciated for allowing various strategies, and are good places to stash health and weapons:

Adding a corner room gives the player a choice here, and savvy players know that going through there is generally safer than corner peeking when they don’t know what’s next.

[ApexofReality]

@Hyblademin

It’s hard to tell how big it is, though based on guesses for the size of the stairwell it seems sort of small. You could probably only fit maybe two satisfying enemy encounters in there, or maybe only 1 if some of the rooms are used for atmosphere or story. I particularly feel that the vat room should be longer and wider, and would make for a good long-range shootout room if things like upper-level catwalks are added.

I don’t know what kind of shooter this will be, so it’s hard to say what features you should focus more on. Corridor style, battlefield style, infiltration? More tactical games rely on cover and interesting firing angles, and generally give the player less health. Maybe the main character is more tank-y and has a few super powers? Often the challenge then comes from awareness of enemy movements and balancing fighting/recovering, and using high-strength abilities at the best moments, and the map design has a heavier focus on making sure there’s enough room to move around and placing helpful items in interesting places. Some games have both of these things, like when the player is occasionally given a vehicle. Half-Life is largely about ammo management and strategic flexibility.

Walk through your level with no enemies, and note the places where the structure of the map raises your anticipation of an encounter, and put some bad guys there. You can artificially alter anticipation levels with music and sound to relax or discomfort the player at specific areas to improve pacing. Add and remove enemies, cover, power-ups to try to approach decent balance, then find people to play test it often.

Regardless of the style of shooter, I think there should be a few more ways to traverse the building, even if you go with linear progression. Things like side rooms and side corridors are appreciated for allowing various strategies, and are good places to stash health and weapons:

Adding a corner room gives the player a choice here, and savvy players know that going through there is generally safer than corner peeking when they don’t know what’s next.

thanks for the tips! A corner room seems like a very good idea! The character will have some superpowers too such as stopping time and more bullet resistance than the guards and melee damage.

[ApexofReality]

@Hyblademin

It’s hard to tell how big it is, though based on guesses for the size of the stairwell it seems sort of small. You could probably only fit maybe two satisfying enemy encounters in there, or maybe only 1 if some of the rooms are used for atmosphere or story. I particularly feel that the vat room should be longer and wider, and would make for a good long-range shootout room if things like upper-level catwalks are added.

I don’t know what kind of shooter this will be, so it’s hard to say what features you should focus more on. Corridor style, battlefield style, infiltration? More tactical games rely on cover and interesting firing angles, and generally give the player less health. Maybe the main character is more tank-y and has a few super powers? Often the challenge then comes from awareness of enemy movements and balancing fighting/recovering, and using high-strength abilities at the best moments, and the map design has a heavier focus on making sure there’s enough room to move around and placing helpful items in interesting places. Some games have both of these things, like when the player is occasionally given a vehicle. Half-Life is largely about ammo management and strategic flexibility.

Walk through your level with no enemies, and note the places where the structure of the map raises your anticipation of an encounter, and put some bad guys there. You can artificially alter anticipation levels with music and sound to relax or discomfort the player at specific areas to improve pacing. Add and remove enemies, cover, power-ups to try to approach decent balance, then find people to play test it often.

Regardless of the style of shooter, I think there should be a few more ways to traverse the building, even if you go with linear progression. Things like side rooms and side corridors are appreciated for allowing various strategies, and are good places to stash health and weapons:

Adding a corner room gives the player a choice here, and savvy players know that going through there is generally safer than corner peeking when they don’t know what’s next.

Does any one think a voxelized fps is a good idea?

[Kiwasi]

So, you really need some Design 101.

The first thing to consider is the purpose of the level. Why does this level exist? How does it advance gameplay? What skills will the player have going in? What about coming out?

There are a lot of different styles of game you can build, with many different design principles. But here are some ideas for a generic shooter.

Since its the first level, you probably want to consider the following

• The player needs to get comfortable moving around the level.
• The player needs to get comfortable with the primary mechanics of the game.
• The player needs a confidence boost, so the encounters should be simple. The level should be almost impossible to fail.
• The player needs to see the first elements of the story, but not be overwhelmed.
• The level should be super linear. Even if the rest of the game is very non linear, a linear first level is important.

Given those objectives I would run with the following set up.

• The human experimentation chamber is empty except for a few crates the player has to navigate around. The purpose of this room is to teach movement.
• The main lab hub is almost empty. This is the site of the players first encounter. Maybe a single observation droid that must be shot. Or perhaps a static camera, alarm or lock that must be shot. Whatever the main mechanic is. If intractable objects are a thing, you also want to put one of those here. The purpose of this encounter is to teach players the primary way they interact with the world.
• Next is your long corridor. Put in a couple of enemies. This is your players first chance to encounter failure. Your point here is to teach them the consequences of bad choices. If your game is about cover, the player should get shot if they move into the open. And so on.
• Finally in the prison you want your first ‘mini boss’ encounter. This encounter should spike up the difficulty slightly, and give the player a taste of what will come. Its the players first real opportunity to experience failure. The main purpose here is to ensure the player really did learn the lessons of the first room. And of course to get your first spike on the interest curve.

Does that help any?

[Buttons4Bellies]

A distinction should be drawn between the first level(s) and later ones. Where the rest of you levels should facilitate play, the first should teach it.

You should start with a list of things you need to introduce to the player. Because that’s what the first level is, an introduction. The level shown might provide some important narrative context. but there’s little in the way of deliberate introduction to your game mechanics. Make a point to use each room as an opportunity for the player to experiment with these mechanics.

So from what you’ve said, the player will be introduced to some combat and a basic keycard puzzle, but you also want to keep in mind more subtle things like navigation. This a fine foundation for a first level.
The first thing the player needs to be familiarized with is navigation, i.e., how to move around the play space. This includes crouching and jumping and all that jazz. It might sound trivial, but you really wanna make sure your players have a solid grasp on movement because it feeds directly into the next parts of gameplay like combat, especially if you’re going for a Half-Life vibe.

So provide situations where the player has to learn in order to progress. Such as separating the player from the exit of the first room by a table they must navigate around. You already force looking around by having sharp turns in the level, though they could occur earlier. I’m sure you’ve played countless examples of games forcing you to crouch and jump to proceed so we’ll move on.

The reason I call finding a key to open a door a “puzzle” is because it should be treated as one, regardless of how mentally taxing it is. I make this point because it’s all too common to happen across a key before finding the locked door, this removes the point of the door ever being locked in the first place.
Present it like a puzzle, provide a problem(the door,) and leave the solution to the player, don’t hide the key for God’s sake, just make sure it’s encountered after an obviously important and obviously locked door. This presents a goal and an opportunity for exploration, which infinitely more interesting than wandering aimlessly, and will teach the player to look for goodies.

Now! Combat! Depending on how complicated your combat is, you’ll want to break up each encounter into the various mechanics and strategies that need to be learned without being overwhelming, this will include things like cover systems to circle strafing(or whatever), and reinforcing health and ammo pickups, which should probably be learned earlier. Each encounter should be designed to learn something new, or experiment with what was just learned in new ways. These are only suggestions of course.

Except hiding keys, You’re not allowed to do that…

[Kiwasi]

@Buttons4Bellies

Except hiding keys, You’re not allowed to do that…

But, but, but… every three days someone posts a thread in general discussion about how great Doom was and how modern FPS never measure up.

And just in case the emoticons didn’t make it obvious, this was never meant to be a serious post. Don’t be like Doom. There are some good design lessons that can come from the game, but there are also a lot of bad ones, key hiding being the most obvious.

[Buttons4Bellies]

For your information, a million physics puzzles separated by color coded locked doors is the best Doom/Half-Life hybrid that could ever be.

And that’s a fact.

[Kiwasi]

@Buttons4Bellies

For your information, a million physics puzzles separated by color coded locked doors is the best Doom/Half-Life hybrid that could ever be.

And that’s a fact.

Don’t even joke about something like that!

[ApexofReality]

@Kiwasi

So, you really need some Design 101.

The first thing to consider is the purpose of the level. Why does this level exist? How does it advance gameplay? What skills will the player have going in? What about coming out?

There are a lot of different styles of game you can build, with many different design principles. But here are some ideas for a generic shooter.

Since its the first level, you probably want to consider the following

• The player needs to get comfortable moving around the level.
• The player needs to get comfortable with the primary mechanics of the game.
• The player needs a confidence boost, so the encounters should be simple. The level should be almost impossible to fail.
• The player needs to see the first elements of the story, but not be overwhelmed.
• The level should be super linear. Even if the rest of the game is very non linear, a linear first level is important.

Given those objectives I would run with the following set up.

• The human experimentation chamber is empty except for a few crates the player has to navigate around. The purpose of this room is to teach movement.
• The main lab hub is almost empty. This is the site of the players first encounter. Maybe a single observation droid that must be shot. Or perhaps a static camera, alarm or lock that must be shot. Whatever the main mechanic is. If intractable objects are a thing, you also want to put one of those here. The purpose of this encounter is to teach players the primary way they interact with the world.
• Next is your long corridor. Put in a couple of enemies. This is your players first chance to encounter failure. Your point here is to teach them the consequences of bad choices. If your game is about cover, the player should get shot if they move into the open. And so on.
• Finally in the prison you want your first ‘mini boss’ encounter. This encounter should spike up the difficulty slightly, and give the player a taste of what will come. Its the players first real opportunity to experience failure. The main purpose here is to ensure the player really did learn the lessons of the first room. And of course to get your first spike on the interest curve.

Does that help any?

That has really helped me a lot I’ll try my best to change up the level