SAPPHIRE JACKSON
Level Designer
THE UNDEAD
Story
The Undead is an action-adventure with hack and slash game play, It features a third-person perspective. Player’s will complete quests and objectives to progress through the story.
The game starts off in (Medieval Japan/1596) period, with Katana training with her
father to become an assassin. He was a master martial artist and a trainer. By the end of training as the day has went away and the night came around. Katana and her father pack up to head home, then they get home and the father and mother put katana to bed. While she was asleep there was a knock on the door so the father went to open the door. Standing at the door was Nobunaga as he had a sharp look in his eye, the father closed the door behind him to have a talk with the most famous shogun Nobunaga. Nobunaga requested that he would like to take him and use his talent to achieve his goal. The father refused thus having Nobunaga kill him. The mother hearing the screams runs to Katana's room waking her to hide her, when katana was hiding in a safe spot the mother got up and eventually opened the door. As she opened the door Nobunaga had thrusted his swords into her killing her at the spot, Nobunaga pulling his sword out then hears a sobbing sound as he finds her as she was just a young girl seeing in her eyes, hate and revenge building up slowly he smiles then with a dagger he leaves a scar on her face and walks away leaving the house knowing he will see her again.
After leaving Katana their, he walked back to his horse getting on it then rides off to his
castle. Traveling back to his castle he stumbles upon a dark merchant that has scars on his face
and in one eye he's blinded wearing a dark robe as Nobunaga approaches him and ask who he is. The mysterious merchant doesn't answer and just hands Nobunaga a black book that has a lock on it and then hands Nobunaga the key and he laughs evilish then Nobunaga takes the book and key with one hand then unsheathing his sword from his buckler slaying the merchant instantly as Nobunaga then reads the cover of the book as it says Book of Necromancy. Nobunaga then puts on a evil smiles and laughs then begins reading it as the book emits a dark energy as it envelopes Nobunaga infusing him with the power to call forth the dead. As he feels the power surge throughout his body. He then begins to ride back to his castle to prepare for the upcoming warring years with his new powers. In 1560 Nobunaga had gathered around 45,000 men from various European historical periods that has happened throughout the years. With all the dead men that has been killed throughout past battles, Nobunaga would travel around the battlefields and take his book and begin to raise the undead corpses that had been slain. Since their bodies have been laying an decomposing all the flesh from their bodies would fall right off causing them to appear only as skeletons.
Over years of warring across the land Nobunaga took the opportunity to use his power he learned to call forth all of the dead from the battles to make his own army to conquer all of Asia.
The war torn Katana having been in these battles getting closer to Nobunaga so she can get revenge from what he had done to her parents. The last battle was at his birthplace at Nagoya Castle where Katana will finally get her revenge. As the two armies clash together Katana fighting and killing all the undead in her way to get where she needs to be. As the undead kill off
numerous humans, Nobunaga uses his necromancy to summon forth more undead to his side as his numbers grow larger every second of the battle. Katana fighting her way through a massive amount of undead Manages to get to the bottom of the stairway. She kills a large amount of undead that surround her, Standing in the middle of the corpses that she had slain. She looks up atop of the stairs stands Nobunaga, Filled with hate and vengeance she rushes a top killing all in front of her as she reaches the top she jumps and kicks off of a undead for a larger lunge going for a killing blow on Nobunaga stabbing him through his heart as he falls back looking at the one who has finally killed him, he laughs in surprise as it's Katana that has killed him seeing the scar he left on her. Nobunaga begins to fade away.
Level Layout
Level 1
This is the first level, it's an open world. The player can explore with very little boundaries. I choose an open-world experience so the player can have a freedom of where they go and how they play. The player must fight their way to the other side to complete the level, it is recommended to explore their surroundings. The player will want to explore not only to look at the beautiful village but to collect loot and health, so the player can survive.
TUTORIAL:
The tutorial will be a note that the player can choose to read or ignore, giving them a choice to learn tutorial or figure it out themselves.
WHY?
I choose this approach because I personally dislike forced tutorials and pop-ups where it stops the player for a brief moment to learn. Since I created basic controls for the game it's really easy to learn and they can always check the control scheme.
Bridges
There are two bridges the player must cross to get to the other side of the village.
One bridge the player must find their way to access it, once they find it, the bridge will start to break and the player must run to the other side else they will die.
The second bridge is broken and needs to be fixed, there is a note telling the player what has happened and they need to find loot and the shop owner to pay for it to get the bridge fixed to be able to cross over.
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Fast Travel​
I created a fast travel system for the player to be able to get to both levels of the game quickly. Since I didn't want the player to have the ability to just skip the whole level I made it where they have to be in the range of the fast travel location to be able to use it.​
Final Level
This is the final level where the player faces the boss. This level follows a linear path, which means there is little exploration. When the player reaches the location where the boss is located, there will be many waves of enemies, until you reach the boss and beat the game.
WHY?
I did this because I wanted the player to be prepared for the boss. The player will be in constant action until the end. The purpose was to fill the player with excitement with high-intensity fights.
Second Level
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This is the second level, after crossing the bridge the player will make their way to the cave entrance.
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Once inside the cave the player must make their way following the path, fighting of the skeletons and making their way up the cave to reach the fast travel system.
WHY?
This level gives the player a chance to be stealthy and avoid enemies. While using their environment around them to get across pathways.
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Mind Map
This was the process I used for my levels.