Kasteel Keep

The head of an evil corporation and his team get access to a time machine and they travel back in time to change history. You follow him back to medieval times to assassinate them and put an end to their evil plans. They have set up an outpost inside a castle.

Single Player

1. Standard Playthrough

Standard Playthrough where the player does a mix of stealth and combat but loves exploration since outposts have good loot.

2. Alternate Playthrough

Alternate Playthrough where the player takes a different and more stealthier approach.

3. Aggressive Playthrough

Aggressive Playthrough where the player goes in loud.

Pre-planning

Design Intention:

Create an outpost-styled level, that contains multiple paths and uses elements of stealth.

I started with a reference board and mood board of environments, architecture, and interesting locations and themes to help inspire and guide my level layout and get a feel for the aesthetic.

Next, I did a digital layout of my level. It is important to think about the theme I established prior, as well as what gameplay I would like to occur when white boxing.

In my first iteration of this gif, I felt I was a little overscored of this was going to be a whole level. I cut out some spaces and moved the stables over. I also realized I needed to spread out the loot since players usually travel through most of an outpost in other games.

Finally, in version 4 I took out access to the keep as I feared it would ruin the flow and give the player too much difficulty as an optional task before the boss room.

White Boxing

For this project, I wanted to do a heavy project using Maya. Since I was more comfortable moving around in unreal, I created modular assets in Maya and imported them into Unreal. This allowed me to build as I went along and make anything I needed rather than rely on asset packs or basic shapes.

Once I establish my space and boundaries, I start detailing my Whitebox. Each area needed to be consistent with the medieval theme.

If any asset needed rework while I tested, I could port it back into Maya and tweak it very easily.

The biggest challenge was the final castle. I tried to reuse a lot of assets, but it was easier to just make it its own piece. I was constantly bringing the mesh back and forth between Maya and Unreal to make sure the castle was to scale and had enough space for gameplay.

Modeling

I created almost everything using Maya and made sure it was modular. I found a lot of things started to blend in or lose detail in the actual level if everything was white. I added different shades of white and dark grey to show details and highlight certain objects. It was fun modeling what I needed and then putting the pieces together.

Here is a showcase of the pieces:

Take-Aways

Things I learned:

Asset Packs:
I didn’t find many available asset packs to fit the aesthetic I was going for so I decided to stay in the whitebox phase and create my own assets in Maya.

Scope:
I originally wanted to do a very stealthy map with a hiding system but I couldn’t get it to work properly. Instead, I decided on this style of combat and stealth that I think turned out really good. I also had a section with High Tier loot and lots of enemies. They woudl’ve been in the Armory or the keep. Instead, I decided on a different style of combat and stealth that I think turned out really well. I also had a section with high-tier loot and lots of enemies. This actually ruined the flow of my games as many players wanted to go there instead of the intended route. Something that was supposed to be optional hurt my game so I decided to cut it and focus more on polishing the rest of my spaces.

Scaling meshes:
I made sure to properly scale everything in Maya. When I brought things back into the engine I realized I had to go back into Maya and make things more consistent. Luckily, I made things modular so this process went much quicker and I was able to control unreal better and edit accordingly in Maya. The worst-case If something wasn’t right, I could either fix it in Maya, or I’d be able to hide it or adapt in some way using the modular assets and basic shapes already available in unreal.

Things I’d do differently:

Maya Issues:
The way I built the castle was actually a really rough way to fix and edit since it was one object in Maya. I was able to import multiple parts which helped me a little bit later. However, the castle portion still wasn’t modular. I would redo it similar to the way I did the church and the tavern. This would allow me to have full control over the space and not be limited to the whole object being solid and only changeable in Maya.

AI changes:
I think I would also change some of the placements of AI. I think my encounters are good overall, but I think shifting some enemies around and maybe tweaking the boss fight would allow for more fluid combat. The way I set it up I didn’t fully understand the sightlines of some of the enemies. Now I could create more polished areas, where before I was learning as I built

Things I’d Like to do if I had 6 more months:

The biggest thing I would like to do is add a key system. I wanted the player to take out multiple guards and be able to use a key to unlock doors rather than pick locks. I think it would also be nice to add a way where the players could beat the level without killing anyone. I know a lot of these kinds of games can be done using expert stealth, and I want to reward those players who don’t choose violence.

I would also like to add final art to this whole level. I would need to find the right materials that work with my meshes or find another asset pack that would work with my style. I would definitely have to kitbash to make sure everything was consistent. I would also have to spend longer on the lighting to make sure everything looked good. I think the castle would need the most work when swapping art out.

Overall This was a great experience doing this level since I love medieval times.