Foundry Dash
My Roles
Level Designer
The Tower is a Halo Forge multiplayer map made over 3 weeks. It is a solo project where I created the level from the ground up, starting with a paper prototype and ending with a fully playable level.
My work
Created a paper prototype with the initial design.
Used Doom SnapMap to implement a modified version of the prototype.
Rapidly Iterated on the level design with playtests from my target audience
Links to each section
Prototype
The paper prototype
Evolution
Final
Final map iteration
Prototype
Researched Doom level design by playing through the game.
Created a paper prototype using the reference.
Iterated on the paper prototype to fit within the limitations of the engine.
The main concept from this level came from a particularly interesting setpiece environment and grew from there. It offered a great shot of an open arena that I made the final encounter.
Implementation
Created the initial level, modeling it after my experience playing the main campaign.
Learned some SnapMap scripting to make the level function more like the campaign and scripted a couple of encounter sequences with dynamic music.
Designed each encounter to be contained into a single arena, with multiple waves of enemies and some reward for completion, often a weapon.
The map had to be designed around the limitations of the engine, primarily it didn’t take into account the changes in elevation, so rooms and encounters had to be added in to move players up to the correct hight.
Encounters
The second encounter. Introduces the plasma rifle to the player and quickly throws waves of enemies at the player. I wanted to keep the player’s engagement high with some close-quarters combat while giving them another weapon immediately to emphasize weapon swapping.
The first room of the map, there to set up the setpiece of the level, the final arena, and gets you used to the combat difficulty.
The third encounter has a similar premise to the first, it’s a big open room with a flashing light leading to a button the player needs to press to move forward. Pressing it spawns waves of demons, with the reward being a new weapon, the heavy assault rifle
The fourth encounter gives the player space to breathe with an initial set of weak enemies and lots of ammo pickups, but as they move through, I spawn waves of new shielded enemies to force the player to keep moving and use the verticality to defeat them
The fifth and final encounter gives the player a fun last weapon to play with, the chain gun, and a simple arena full of enemies to mow through before finishing off strong. Originally, the level was supposed to be 2 more encounters, but limitations on the assignment forced a shorter ending.
My process
Final Thoughts
Created a paper prototype of the project, emulating my experience with the main campaign.
Implemented each of the encounters, using the SnapMap scripting to add dynamic music and spawn hordes of enemies.
Each level was iterated through to eliminate anything that interrupted the flow of combat.
Features
Created a Doom SnapMap level with 5 distinct encounters.
Reflections
A blast of a project to work on. It was my first time ever playing a modern Doom game, and it was exciting to work in an engine with so many tools to keep up player emotion and make things exciting.
