Jordon's Post #10

My Post Mortem

First of all I would like to say that I loved this class! I wouldn’t change a thing about it if I was the instructor. I like the Unreal engine a lot, and it was great to have my teammates there to back me up the whole way. I was satisfied with the way the class was set up as far as the milestones were concerned. I really felt that taking the first level design class gave me an edge in World Building and that my biggest challenge was in the conceptual phase of the class. Once my group got that out of the way I was able to get to work in the engine and that was where we had the most fun. With that said, I will now get down to the actual key points of my Post Mortem.
So many things went right for my team that it is hard to organize them all into a coherent message. First off, I sincerely believe that I had the two best teammates in the entire class. We had great concepts that we passed back and forth between each other until they turned out perfect. We had great communication and work ethic which is what gave our group a distinct advantage. Chris and Lionell’s concept art gave us the vision that we needed to make our level look just like we planned. I had a very clear vision of how our level would be laid out when I began working on it in Unreal. When Chris eventually took over he completed the level better than we could have imagined.
Also, I feel that our group placed our assets at just the right locations to make our level looked and felt authentic. Lionell did a great job with the textures for our level and that was the difference between realistic and fake. My experience with Unreal really came in handy because I was able to dig out a good portion of the level in a relatively short period of time. This turned out to be a great asset to us because we needed the extra time to deal with some problems that came up after the first playtest.
There were a few problems with our level design process starting at the very beginning. At first our concept was way too broad because when I heard world building I thought that your concept had to encompass the entire world that the game takes place in. In actuality your concept only needs to be comprised of the areas that your action would occur in. Eventually we were able to slim our concept down, but not before we made our group look slightly foolish to the class.
After that the road was generally smooth for us until it came time to actually dig the level out in Unreal. I had completed a good two fifths of the level by the last weekend before the playtest and it was time for us to ether let Chris take over or let me finish it. We decided to let Chris take over, but I just couldn’t leave it alone. I then proceeded to finish the rest of the level on my own while Chris was working on his own version. Two days before the playtest we had two versions of the level and one choice to make. This was the first and the last time our group had a breakdown in communication. We ended up choosing my version of the level because I had added a pool of water as well as a rock wall as was stated in our concepts. Chris’ version looked great, but it was full of convex shapes and therefore buggy as all hell.
The only other thing that went wrong for our level was the rock wall jumping challenge. I can’t say anything else other than that it sucked. I take full responsibility for it and I was able to fix it eventually. It was way too hard to construct as well as no fun for the player, and therefore had to go. We ended up adding a vine climbing challenge in its place to make things easier on the player. I have a very good feeling that it is a vast improvement over the rock wall.
If we had more time I can tell you that we would have added a small outdoor part to our level just to show the player what it looked like when they got out of the cave. I also think that we would have tried to add some lighting and fog effects to our level to make it look more mysterious. My group may have also tried to model a few of the awesome enemies that we had come up with and put them in as placeholders for the player’s viewing pleasure.
If I could go back in time and change something I wouldn’t. I loved working with my group as well as working with Unreal. Through all of the ups and downs our group remained focused and determined to make the best level possible. As I stated before I had the best group in the class and I feel privileged to have worked beside them. The past ten weeks that we spent working on our project have been some of the best times of my entire life and I would not trade them for anything! I would also like to thank Amanda for being a great instructor and helping us with any problems that came up. In conclusion I feel that I can only sit and pray that our level is looked upon with favor by the class as well as the instructor.
Long Live Maximum Amazing!