Just a quick video update on what I’ve gotten done on my basic combat encounter. I’ve been busy getting ready for my summer job teaching UDK as well as working on another project so this GoW level has kinda been left to the side for the past few weeks.
Still, I’ve managed to work on it here and there and was able to get a lot of the major work done. The level is still very much a work in progress, but its much closer to the final version than my previous updates. Check it out:
There is still much to be done, like creating the background city surrounding the main building, some more sound work, some of the dialog is still a bit “iffy” and might need to be replaced. Overall, I am much closer to the final product than I was a few days ago. Although its not perfect, it does some things pretty well, other things not as much. It’s been a good learning experience and I’ll keep the lessons I learned here for my next GoW piece.
Something that occurred during this update was the expansion of the area and objectives. This really isn’t the best thing as it adds in a lot more work for me. Although I feel I didn’t go too overboard I did expand the level quite a bit. The original idea was a single basic combat encounter, but it quickly changed into two, in which the player called the elevator and defended. Now its expanded again to three combat encounters and a small bit of exploration at the beginning as well as in the middle.
This helps a bit with pacing, but the great feeling of combat to exploration to puzzle back to combat still isn’t perfected here. Creating a level to focus on directly on creating good pacing could be a good way to go on a later level.
The level objectives themselves can still be a little hard to understand at first even with some of the dialog and mission updates I’ve added in. I still need to clarify everything a bit more and make it easier to understand with some better dialog, sounds and visual cues.
For example, players still don’t know when the elevator opens up during the final combat round. The timer runs out but players are so busy fighting they don’t even notice. To alleviate this, I need to add in a nice sound effect for the opening doors, maybe an “elevator arrived” ding sound and a point of interest so players can look at it for a split second as it opens up without turning to look themselves. It would also be great if I can find dialog that fits properly for the scene but I don’t know if the Stock GoW sounds will have anything I can grab.
Overall the project is quickly coming to an end and I like where its gone. Still not perfect but its a good starting point for a few more of these small instances I will be creating in the future.
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