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Historical setting
You are immersed in a cityscape based on Antwerp during the Eighty Years’ War. Use the city's structure to your advantage, explore multiple pathways and take advantage of the verticality.
Prowling
Use hiding spots, tall grass and cover to hunt and quietly take down the Spanish soldiers. Kill or avoid enemies to find the man in charge.
The game is set in Antwerp during the Eighty Years' War. In the story, the city is under siege by the Spanish army.
About Sicaria
Exploration
Choose between multiple approaches that showcase different parts of the player's movement, enemy set-ups or ways to take them out. Scattered throughout the level are gadgets that can help the player, so they're worth looking out for
Alignment
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Responsible for the team alignment and vision for the project.
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Planned user stories for designers to fit with the sprint goal.
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Wrote team documentation to help with team alignment and defined the goals.
Level design
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Planned and designed a level with multiple approaches, solutions, and experiences.
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Set up metrics for the level such as cover heights, climbing routes, and gadgets.
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Worked with environment artists to establish the location, the scope of the level and the assets required for it.
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Assisted with iterating and finalizing another designer's level.
Playtesting
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Playtested with internal and external playtesters.
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Iterated the level based on playtesting feedback.
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Tracked playtesting feedback and iterations throughout development to find repeating feedback.
Role responsibilities
About
Marketplace
Collisions
Due to the environment art scope, and features related to the character, we decided to set up collisions manually, while removing collisions on the set-dressing. This added more work for level designers but allowed us to make more consistent collisions and avoid playes snagging onto the meshes.
To ensure consistentcy and reduce movement issues, we only have collisions on larger objects, such as crates and barrels, and removed them from set-dressing detailing such as cabages or small baskets. This went back and forth with environment art, to ensure we had a consistent approach to keep the floor and sightlines around the covers clear to avoid blocking the player or their sightlines.
Major iterations made:
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Iterated on cover placements to fit the collisons without breaking the covers intention
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Cleaned up the cover placements to avoid blocking players
Level introduction
As the player approaches the marketplace immediately after the onboarding level I wanted to add an introduction that gives the player an overview of the location, and a dialogue between two enemies hinting towards the player's goal. As this will also be where the player is taught cover takedowns, an easy example is set up for the player.
Major iterations made:
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Created a connector to slow the pace between level sections.
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Set up the scripted event, and wrote the dialogue to fit the location.
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Iterated the location to give the player cover while overhearing the enemies and clarifying when the enemy will be safe to kill.
Pathing
When setting up pathing for a level with multiple paths, our main focus was that each path has something unique that makes it worth going through. Some are harder, going straight through the critical path, while some are longer but take the player through a side alley with lower stakes, and different movement required.
Major iterations made:
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Cleared up paths through the critical path to the ending.
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Rotated the staircase to give cover as the player approaches the neutral space.
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Moved the paths to clear the sightline to the goal, the archways with the flag
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Created smaller paths to connect the different routes.
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Iterated on the lighting to better leash the player towards the different routes
Market iteration
The market was our main level, created by another level designer, which we used to showcase the different aspects of the game, such as the movement modes, the stealth gameplay, and the AI.
I iterated upon the guidance and pathing throughout the level to make sure that players would notice the different paths available while being guided towards the end. I kept the idea of the original level from the other level designer but moved around the paths to be clearer and look more interesting.
I also went over the collisions of the level to smooth out the player experience by avoiding being snagged on a collision that didn't fit with the set dressing. This was connected to our cover system required a single collision to move along it, so combining set-dressing to one collision was needed.
Docks
Overview
I decided to base my level around docks, to contrast with the alleyways and markets used throughout the rest of the game, as well as set up for the ending of the level. I created a section along the riverside ending in a military encampment loading weapons and valuables onto the ships.
The level would be the final level section for the game and would build upon the challenges from previous levels to create interesting scenarioes. My main focus for the level was sight-lines and diverse interconnecting paths that allow the player to face the enemies head on or find alternative ways to get to conclusion.
As the design lead, I made the decision to scrap my level from the game, due to issues with scope. As the environment scope was our main bottleneck, the docks was the obvious choice since it used a lot of custom assets, such as the water, ships, and piers.
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Game conclusion
The ending of the level went through multiple iterations, going back and forth with environment artists to figure out the scope and the custom assets needed. Initially, being a warehouse, the ending would have the player infiltrate and sneak through it to kill the final target. As it was the ending of the game I wanted to create a small cutscene with the player escaping, after lighting a fuse to destroy the warehouse.
The final version became a small naval base used by the Spanish to load their ships with stolen valuables. This was a more open space, with an interior section, and the player blowing up the ship at the end. As we could reuse more assets for the new space, I could make it a longer sequence with the player first taking out the target, before going to the ship, rather than it being a single encounter.
Guidance
As the paths were branching it was important to guide the player so they end up going the right direction, even if they don't know it. I used various ways of guiding the player through the level, mainly through lighting, and using landmarks to catch the player's attention.
As the player arrives at the docks, they see a ship in the river, showcasing the type of environment they're gonna be playing in. After going through the first section they then see a second closer ship, as well as the gate to the naval base, drawing them towards the target.
Using lighting to guide the player when hitting convergence points helps make sure they move towards the goal by hiding the previous space as well as making the critical path more appealing. I avoided having valves in the level to allow players to continue to explore the area and gather gadgets, which means that I need to make sure that every space is traversable and still guides the player towards the goal.
I also used lighting and smaller set-dressing props to signify to the player where enemies would stop their patrols, allowing them to better plan for the encounters, or how to avoid being spotted.
Approaches
My main focus with the level was to give the player choices about where to go, with all of them leading to the ending by diverging and converging. Using lighting and sightlines I wanted to the player to never feel lost, but be plesantly surprised when they get to a new section.
In the first section I split the area into four approaches that all lead to two converging points. Each have different gameplay connected to them such as the building using climbing, the piers being tighter packed and the tunnel requiring gadgets to get past. Each section also rewards the player for exploring to find gadgets, or having fewer enemies to sneak around.
Scripting
Exploration
During the concepting phase of the project, we went wild with ideas for features, focused on the potential dynamics they could bring to the game, such as player abilities, level ingredients, or enemy encounters.
I created prototypes for everything from mission systems, equipable barrels for hiding, and interaction systems, to tools for level designers or environment artists.
As we honed in on the type of game we wanted to create, we used the prototypes we had created to inform our decisions on what to keep as we moved into the pre-production phase.
Tools
Tool exploration
As part of the concepting phase, I wanted to spent time on improving my tool creation skills, and looked at the workflow from previous blocks to find improvement points. I created the tools and wrote documentation for the team to use to help explain how they can be used by the team and how it can be built upon by programmers.
Most of the tools ended up not being used as alternatives were found or ended up not being useful, but the experience of setting them up and writting the documentation for the team proved useful when setting up documentation for the rest of the project.
Design Alignment
Take-aways
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Level design for a Stealth game heavily depends on the AI, meaning that gym investigations, metrics and encounters can be difficult to set up early, or invalidated.
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Keeping the game optimized, both in game and editor is incredibly important to make testing patrol paths and locations easier.
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Having a full year to develop a project will result in longer time spent on discussions and decisions taking longer if not kept in check by leads.
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Having a clear vision within the team early on helps guide the prototypes and keeping the team alligned and on track.
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Finding the balance between waiting for enemies and prowling around the enemies was difficult as figuring out the spacing and paths throughout the level without increasing the scope of the environment art proved difficult.
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Giving the player too many options for where to go can make the experience confusing since they'll have a harder time orienting themselves or will be unsure where to go without missing secrets.
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