Read//Write

To begin I began looking for referrences, I wanted a high tech style that conveyed coldness, but vibrant colours to serve as a visual contrast to the empty spaces.

I want to invert this with the destroyed atrium that featured in the last portion of the level.

By building off a set of established mechanics that informs how exactly the level will play generally speak but I’ll use that to build tension within the level itself.

Given the limited time frame & scope of the level I tried to keep the references to the most relevant visual material and didn’t deviate far from the inspiration for the blockout.

I established early on that I wanted to use the Cel Shader I’d created for prior projects as attempting photo-realism inside VR can lead to a real headache in terms of optimisation and smooth frame-rates. I like to establish visual style early as that will dictate design decisions around lighting, object placement and visually conveying mechanics and gameplay elements.

I didn’t do a top down plan in Photoshop due to time constraints however  I did find it useful to create a simple paper map with key gameplay elements

Some alterations where made to accomodate scale and space due to how sensetive a player is to those factors inside VR.
I wanted to keep corners tight and sharp to maintain the element of surprise for the player.

The atrium serves as a centeral landmark for the player and I used it to forshadow by making it look like a combat arena, with obvious cover points

My goal with the level was to build tension with a high energy pay-off for the player.