"Love Letters" - Fallout 4
"LOVE LETTERS" is a Master's Thesis completed as part of the Level Design program at the Guildhall at SMU. In it, players take on a request from one of two former lovers, retracing their steps in order to collect - and burn - the love letters they once exchanged.
LEVEL INFORMATION
Role: Level Designer
Game: Fallout 4
Date: August-May 2020-21
Team Size: Solo
Genre: FPS, RPG
Engine: Creation Kit
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Responsibilities
DESIGN
Digital maps and level design documentation.
CONSTRUCTION
Building out each space with modular kits.
DECORATION
Propping, cluttering, and lighting all spaces.
NARRATIVE
Integrating voice lines and notes written by NPCs.
Click each image for details and a larger view.
"LOVE LETTERS" - GALLERY
DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Tone and Gameplay Actions
"Love Letters" was built to explore the way the tone quest's narrative impacts players' gameplay behaviors. To that end, I built two quest-giver NPCs. Each had a distinct perspective on their recent breakup:
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Charlie Weiss: bitter, resentful, sharp-tongued.
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Robin Lucero: sad, regretful, self-pitying.
RESULTS: idk man
The white arrows indicate the visual lines drawn to the door by the open door, sloping rubble, and fallen stool.
Storytelling through Environment
Despite the NPCs' deaths, their lives and struggles live on in the props I chose for their houses for players to find.
In order to ensure players cared about the missing NPCs' fates, they had to understand them... without ever meeting them. Therefore, I decorated each NPC's shack so their belongings would bring them to life.
EXAMPLE: The inhabitant of this particular shack cared about appearances, shown by the neatly arranged pre-war items on the prominent shelves.
However, he also felt shame for other parts of himself: many empty liquor bottles have been shoved unceremoniously under the bed to hide them from view.
This intentional prop choice prompts the player to make inferences about the NPC, building empathy as they do.
Modular, Yet Unique
Modular kits provide developers the benefit of fast, flexible construction. I worked with four different kits on "Gone Down Below" to stretch my skills and further my familiarity with them.
However, on their own, modkits can also become too generic and blend together. To combat this, I used standout set pieces and even other modkits in each space to ensure uniqueness.
EXAMPLE: The steam tunnel settlement space in particular blended disparate styles. Here, the space is given its character in part by the unusual combination of steam tunnel pipes and utility bridges - right next to wooden shacks. I incorporated pipes and other wooden pieces throughout the space as well to integrate the styles.
Wooden planking on the bridges and homes built around pipes helped marry the shack and tunnel kits, and together, they create a standout space.
POSTMORTEM
What Went Well
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Propping spaces efficiently. For each area, I created both an object palette of meshes based on items I found in comparable spaces and a small "playground" outside the confines of the level in which to assemble pipes or other multi-object collections which could then be copied, pasted, positioned, and material-swapped. Both techniques sped up aesthetics significantly.
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Task tracking and prioritization. Though much of my level's focus was on the environmental design, I correctly prioritized flow and gameplay to ensure I had a fun level before diving into the aesthetic elements.
What Was Learned
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The power of modkits. Though I worked with modkits previously, I fell in love with them during "Gone Down Below". Using them sped up construction immensely, and decorating them to ensure uniqueness and visual interest was an enjoyable challenge.
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Familiarity with an editor makes a difference. "Gone Down Below" was my first opportunity to work in a game I already knew the editor for, and it sped up development time immensely, allowing me to push myself further in terms of what I could do.