Freebooter is a senior capstone project at Columbia College Chicago. Freebooter is an arena FPS game inspired by games like Quake and Ultrakill. This page is dedicated to my personal work process and progress on this game. The full game can be found on the itch page.
During the beginning of the project we sat down and discussed the idea of the game more in depth and the Designers came together and we collectively discussed our ideas about the levels. We collectively agreed upon our individual level ideas so that there was a good variation throughout the game so that the player was given a diverse gameplay. The uniqueness that my level was bringing was a full indoor experience opposed to the other levels being in the style of Venice and a Jungle.
Overgrowth
This is the first pass at the 2D top down layout for the Overgrowth level. The level is starting on the right in the large Hanger room and the idea is that the player had to fight through each room and solve puzzles to continue from one room to another.
After finishing this first pass at the layout I had consulted with the other designers and we determined that this version was too squared off causing there to be too much backtracking. The amount of backtracking would have a negative effect upon the player rather than making them feel that they are progressing.
After reconsidering and taking in the input from others I had created this version. this benefit of this version is that with it being a more circular pattern it allows a more rotational progression rather than progressing then backtrack then progressing again. Although backtracking was not entirely eliminated it has been built with a reward and level progression in mind. Like most top down layouts there are changes when the level was built out. These changes were for the advancement and to make the player experience more satisfying.
While grey boxing I had color coded the rooms for ease of locating and being able to visual tell the room change apart while it is in the early stages. The image below is the roughest version of the grey box.
After finishing the grey box first pass, I had gone back and began incorporating placeholder props and obstacles.
While working upon the level the original idea was that the bunker building was getting overgrown and being reclaimed by nature again. This I had went through and broke out the roof so this solved two issues, the level theme and a reason for why there is rocks and rubble blocking and breaking the lobby area into it’s two separate sections that it is supposed to be.
Through playtesting and receiving feedback from players it was determined that there was not enough height variation throughout the level and so I had made the decision to introduce more height variation. This biggest challenge with this change was to make it so that the player could not trap and easily avoid the swarmer enemies. To prevent this issue I had to create the ramp shown in the after picture. Making the ramp had its challenges as I had to make it slowly climb so that the swarmer’s and the player themselves do not get stuck or have dead zones. Afterward I had to reintroduce the props to the room and another ramp for the exit doorway.
