Seems like today wasn't my day—I had a bit of a lazy start, and some stuff happened in the evening that kind of threw off my mental state. So I wasn't much in the mood for level editing, and I mostly just fiddled with details, because of course I'm fascinated with details.
But I should summarize the level I'm working on here before I get into anything else anyway. Here we go!
Nightfall started out with a simple goal: create a city level with a strong focus on local lighting. Many levels in Distance rely on blanket ambient or directional lighting to make objects visible, but that limits the level of visual detail the author can tune. This is especially noticeable when an inexperienced creator tries their hand at a dark level, often sacrificing visibility for some notion of "atmosphere". The aim of Nightfall is to demonstrate how to rely on local lighting to create an effective nighttime level.
Of course, I'm still pretty new to level design myself, so I'm figuring things out as I go along. I'm sure the resident lighting nerds in the Distance community (looking at you, Brent and Galen) have much more to say on this than I do. I intend to do some thorough testing along the way, though I will probably want the track layout in a "first playable" state before that happens, or else I won't have anything to test. (Besides the light density. I do worry about running into a ceiling with that.)
Naturally, I let the scope increase just a bit along the way, so as I planned the initial stretch of open road leading to the city, I added another component to the design goals: speed zones. Denoted by speed limit signs on the track, these zones break up the level into large sections, altering the drag multiplier for each. They will allow me to experiment with the track gameplay; for instance, a low-speed section in the heart of the city could have many lanes and intersections to navigate, offering corner-cutting action not normally found in Distance. Plus, what good is a futuristic city without an actively-enforced speed limit?
Admittedly, I've only done provisional testing of these zones, and I'm just as likely to throw them out if I find they don't work (it's never too late for that!). The idea actually came about when I sped up the car for the initial stretch, since it felt too slow for an area where I'm primarily trying to catch the attention of the player with the lighting (more on that section of the level in a future post). Hopefully my little experiment is, at the very least, conclusive.
This project also serves as a design exercise for myself, giving me experience in outlining and planning the elements of the level. Further on, playtesting will factor into this as well. It's good practice for when I return to DigiPen and have to apply these skills to games directly once again.
I've started a section in my notebook for sketching ideas, layouts, and goals. I try to make broad strokes while doing this—as I mentioned initially, I easily become obsessed with details, but it's important in the beginning that I just establish my concept, in writing and then in the editor. I can detail later, after prototyping and even testing. (The picture below is from when I first started.)
I've been typing for over an hour and don't want to make a habit of submitting to this thing late, so I'm going to cut myself off here. I'll try to keep my posts concise, likely featuring one or two themes covering the elements of level design I grappled with that day. I'm excited to keep this train rolling, and I hope you're just as excited to follow me! See you tomorrow~
