"New Heights" - Fallout 4
"NEW HEIGHTS" brings players to a new town in the world of Fallout 4, built into an old quarry by a riverside. Though the town is prospering, it has attracted unwanted attention from raiders, and the player must set it right by investigating the town and its NPC inhabitants.
LEVEL INFORMATION
Role: Level Designer
Game: Fallout 4
Date: January-May 2020
Team Size: Solo
Genre: FPS, RPG
Engine: Creation Kit
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Responsibilities
PREPRODUCTION
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Presented documentation outlining pacing, design, and intended aesthetics to level stakeholder
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Created 5 action blocks exploring mechanics for the final level to explore fun and feasibility
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Whiteboxed space to test flow and scale before implementing full gameplay
IMPLEMENTATION
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Built and propped a custom area matching Fallout 4's style, including secret areas for exploration
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Scripted NPC action packages for random townsfolk and quest-relevant characters
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Designed 2 combat encounters to challenge players and to advance the storyline
Click each image for details and a larger view.
"NEW HEIGHTS" - GALLERY
DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Design Iteration
As my first major level, I got early and frequent playtest feedback as I designed. Particular points of focus and improvement during development included:
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Ensuring visual interest despite the amount of brown contributed by the shack modkit.
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Player flow throughout the level, reducing backtracking and improving sightlines.
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Balancing gameplay and exploration, so players with different play styles could choose the amount of each that interested them.
EXAMPLE: This gif shows the same space at two stages: whitebox and its final version. The final version showcases many of the iterations named above based on playtester feedback throughout development.
From whitebox to the final mod, the town of New Heights changed a lot - but retained its bones throughout.
Responsive Quest Design
Players responded favorably to how many options they were given when delivering the letter in playtests.
Early playtesters also requested more responsive quest design that let them exercise the freedom of the open world within New Heights. As such, I scripted the questline to respond dynamically to many different decisions the player might make.
EXAMPLE: When the player is asked to deliver this letter by a suspicious character, the quest supports:
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Reading the letter and still delivering it, which will frame the Mayor for the raiders' appearance in town.
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Reading it and questioning the suspicious NPC who gave it to you.
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Reading it and reporting it to the mayor.
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Not reading the letter and delivering it.
Worldbuilding
To encourage and reward exploration in the town, I needed to bring it to life. I did this using:
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Townsfolk NPCs with random dialogue according to player's quest progression.
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Small narrative moments created by set design choices that reflected daily life in the town.
EXAMPLE: Each townsperson lived in a barracks-like room decorated to reflect their life. In this one, empty bottles and messy papers drew the eye to a locket, a note, and a wedding ring left behind by the inhabitant's wife.
This rewarded player exploration with story moments, and humanized the random NPCs who lived in the town.
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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Learning a new engine. "New Heights" was both my first major mod and my first attempt at using Creation Kit. Learning the engine, its scripting language, and the like, was a challenge, but efforts early on paid off as development sped up the further along I went.
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Aesthetics and worldbuilding came together well to bring the town of New Heights to life. Many playtesters reported enjoying the amount of exploration possible within the space, and the details about the characters they could learn by doing so.
What Was Learned
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Test to break the quest. I learned throughout this project that QA testing on my level needs to be thorough and be done often. Seeing the places where testers found flaws in this mod has made me a much better tester on subsequent projects, able to head off issues as they arise.
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Build with gameplay and design in mind. The importance of balancing the scope of both my quest and my aesthetics was impressed upon me as I developed "New Heights". Building this space taught me to ensure both are addressed - and both are in balance - if I want to create engaging and memorable levels.