the roman coliseum originally known as the flavian amphitheater is around 2000 years old and was the largest building in the roman empire and also one of the largest in the world at the time, it is one of Romes most well known landmarks and is possibly the most famous arena in the world hosting thousands of games in its lifetime. the arena that i plan to design will be similar in shape to this although it will have to be bigger with objects in it for cover and possibly turrets around the top to make it more difficult, although it is old the coliseum is a good design to go off as it is an iconic structure that is easily recognizable although my arena wont be in anywhere near as much detail as the coliseum is around the outside as you wont see it from the out side and the walls will only be there to stop people from getting out of the arena.
http://www.allagegaming.com/products/twisted-metal-playstation-3-review/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/playstation/twisted-metal-2/screenshots/gameShotId,487271/
these are some screen caps from various twisted metal games, instead of being in arenas they are set in real world locations as you can see the bottom image is in the streets of Paris near the Eiffel tower and the other is set in a small American town instead of having walls to keep the player in though they mostly had invisible walls and some buildings. although this is the game that mine is based mostly off of my level design will be different as i do not want real world places or even towns, as i want mine to be more like a futuristic gladiatorial combat game
http://www.thunderboltgames.com/forums/index.php?threads/favourite-dlc.3509/
although my game will not be a racing game like wipeout it will be set in the near future so although i will not be making a race track i can take elements from the wipeout games level design and implement them into my game such as most of wipeouts tracks especially the old ones use bright lights to try and distract you from the race and they also help with the feeling of speed that you get from playing them as you see the numbers on your speed gauge rise and the lights along the track start to blur and stretch out like you are going close to the speed of light along the slow bending tracks. I like the style that is shown in picture 2 with the lights shown all around and the blocks coming out of the sides it looks almost like the ship is driving down the side of a skyscraper to the streets below, I also like the mad colors and bright lights that are shown in the third picture although i don't think my level will be that colorful as i don't think that it would fit in with the style of my game.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/dreamcast/370075-star-wars-demolition/images/gs_screen-3
star wars demolitions level design was always pretty basic whether is was the streets of mos eisley (as shown in picture 1) or the dune sea (picture 2). the levels were fairly large and apart from the city and the palace were fairly empty as you can see in picture 2 there is not much scenery around apart from some indigenous animals and small structures with the occasional energy recharger and sand crawler scattered around the general rule for this game was if you ran into someone one of you would end up dead which meant that there wasnt alot of strategy to use involving these levels apart from collect weapons and ammo then go looking for people, the size they made most of the levels meant that putting more scenery in would have made this game tedious as you could go quite along time without seeing everyone, the levels boundaries weren't that great either as although some had them there were parts where you could go through to appear on the other side of the map this posed problems though as you could go into the instant kill zones if you went in at an angle, also a few of the cars had special moves that boosted their speed which allowed them to hit the barriers and travel over them into instant kill zones although this was your own fault most of the time some of the boundaries werent clearly designed and could cause confusion and imminent death. although some of the levels had good aspects in them such as the first picture where there were high walls around the outside and plenty of cover to hide behind and it wasnt too big.
the micro machines games are some of the classic comedy racing games where you control a toy car and guide it around a homemade track usually littered with such hazards as spilled oil, pool balls rolling around and the house cat, the tracks were always entertaing and fun if not some times a little frustrating that the terrible handling would cause you to hit oil and fall off the edge of the desk for 10 minutes whilst everyone caught up to you and you would have to build up your lead again, as the games advanced the tracks and hazards became more challenging as you can see in picture one you are racing around a pool table whilst having to avoid the pool balls, but in my opinion none of the newer tracks and challenges could compete with the old classics of knowing the oil is coming up seeing the oil can then inevitably hitting the oil that you knew was there as it takes up the entire track.
destruction derby is one of the old classic simple games with a simple premise of be the last one standing its arenas and level design are simple enough its either a big grey oval with walls that you drive around whilst avoiding crashing, or its a big grey oval where you face the middle and the idea is that you crash into everyone else and hope that your car doesn't break down, its level design isn't the most complicated in the world but it serves its purpose which is to give you something to drive around on whilst you crash into every one else, its basic shape is similar to what i will want for my game but i would like a more detail to be put into mine with some objects in it for cover and turrets around the sides as a hazard.
vigilante 8 was one of the first car combat games its level design led it all over America not to any major cities or landmarks but across barren desserts, deserted airfields snowy mountains, national parks as well ass other areas. the levels although they looked big were usually fairly small which led to some chaotic combat with three or four cars shooting each other at the same time most of the levels had some form of boundary to stop you traveling out of the map some of them just had invisible walls though or instant death areas where if you traveled too far away you would get a timer telling you to turn back and if you failed to do so would blow up your car.
this is another amphitheater in Croatia it is like the one in Rome only much smaller i want my arena to take the shape of these with a wall round the side but done in a modern way.
i have looked at many levels and arenas to help give me an idea to what i want to create for my game i have looked at the ancient amphitheaters such the roman coliseum and the amphitheater in Croatia as this was what i originally wanted for the shape of my arena i had also looked at more modern day sporting arenas but they weren't like what I wanted as they were too far away from the idea that i had and didn't add anything to the research that would help me so i decided to leave them out and focus on finding levels and arenas that would help me with my design, I also looked at the level designs of games that were similar to mine in game play or style so that they would be able to help me decide what i wanted the arena to look like not just the shape, i looked at many games from the game that mine is most closely related to twisted metal, although i want my game play to be similar to this game its level design was too open for me, its levels have a mix of wide open areas that are good for firefights and objects and buildings to hide behind to wait for a chance to attack or to escape one the fact that all their locations were famous places was always fun as most people would have known these places and thus been immersed into the game more but the open world feeling isn't what i want for my level also i don't want to be modeling something after a real place as i want my level to be unfamiliar to the player so that they wont know what to expect, i also looked at similar games such as star wars demolition and destruction derby with their basic and empty level design, and games such as micro machines with its simple tracks that are made harder because of hazards and wipeout with its simple tracks that are made harder with its speed and bright lights. so for my level i have decided to have a coliseum type level where it will be a circle with a wall to prevent the cars from escaping with objects in it so that there is something to hide behind with hazards such as turrets to make it harder and flood lights to provide the lighting.
No comments:
Post a Comment