London's Darkest Hour
Level Design
Work
"Of course your thinking about food while I'm under attack!"
- Agent 6, London's Darkest Hour
London's Darkest Hour is a solo level design project that immerses the player in the world of Westminster London.
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Play as an MI6 spy who battles their way through Westminster London defeating any terrorist in your path. Be careful agent you never know whom you can trust. ​
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​This project was carried out as a solo project and allowed me to experiment with roles such as:
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Level Design
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C++ Visual Scripting
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Narration Design
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External sources used in this project:
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All audio files - YouTube/ FreeSounds.org
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Helicopter Model - SketchFab
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Big Ben Clock Face (Image) - Google
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Character Models - Mixamo
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Police Car - SketchFab
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News Photos - BBC News
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Narration Files - Replica
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Blockout Plug-in - UE4 Marketplace
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Waterloo Pier - London's Darkest Hour
The player starts off at the waterloo pier where the objective is in plain sight (Big Ben).
Aquarium - London's Darkest Hour
Players path has been blocked so they must make their way down into the aquarium to find another route
Westminster Bridge - London's Darkest Hour
Westminster bridge is where the player experience majority of the combat with waves of enemies and helicopter attacks.
House of Parliament - London's Darkest Hour
House of Parliament allows the player to experience a "lul" moment to regain themselves after the attack from the bridge before proceeding to big ben.
Big Ben - London's Darkest Hour
When the player navigates to the top of big ben they are presented with a bomb that is locked and they need to find something to cut the door off. Once they do these they will need to cut the red wire to defuse the bomb, cutting any other wire will involve the bomb blowing up.
Gathering Reference Materials
The level is set in Westminster, London and unfortunately, gaining first-hand reference imagines would be challenging. Google maps have allowed me to walk down the streets and landmarks of my chosen locations that I will discuss below. I will only be discussing some of the images I have screenshotted, but to see them all; please visit my Miro board.
I started by looking at all the structures surrounding Big Ben that could be seen as enjoyable gameplay. I gathered as much material as I could as I felt that these shouldn't just be used for reference but should also be a source of inspiration.
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Mood & Atmosphere
The goal for the mood is;
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Dark
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Emptiness
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Broken
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Rundown
The goal for the atmosphere is;
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Dark and gloomy through the use of smoke and dull colours like deep blue.
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Misty
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Worn structures
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Slow/ Medium - paced
Flow Chart
Beat Chart
Metrics
When the player navigates to the top of big ben they are presented with a bomb that is locked and they need to find something to cut the door off. Once they do these they will need to cut the red wire to defuse the bomb, cutting any other wire will involve the bomb blowing up.
One of the most common components in any city is doors and windows, which must be consistent throughout the project. For the doors, I found that playtester felt comfortable going under doors that had a height of 250cm as this felt more to the scale of the character without having any camera clipping while walking under. Nevertheless, working out the width of the doors became challenging as they had to look visually scaling but to allow enough affordance for the camera to fit through without glitching. After, many interactions I soon discovered the width of:
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Single door = 200 cm
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Double door = 290 cm
I needed to have a way to let the player know the difference between what jumpable height objects should be and what height should always be impossible. With that said:
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Jump over height = 70 cm
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vault over minimum height = 150 cm
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Vault over maximum height = 200 cm
None jumpable objects should have a clear buffer zone of 100 cm, and fences that are going to be non-jumpable should all share the same material and be 125 cm off the ground. The issue here was when I was playtesting; the player could still jump over. To counter this, I was able to go into the blueprints and add a tag of 'NonJumpable' objects allowing us as designers to have more control of guiding the player.
When setting up half cover height for the enemy, I found that players responded well to 85cm as it still exposed the enemies head and shoulders, allowing them to be still engaged from long range.
With the positive feedback I got from the half cover height, I took it on board when setting the full cover height values as you still need to see the player's head/ arm to ensure they are always in the player's view but may be out of grasp.
Bubble Diagram
Waterloo Pier - London's Darkest Hour
The player starts off at the waterloo pier where the objective is in plain sight (Big Ben).
Aquarium - London's Darkest Hour
Players path has been blocked so they must make their way down into the aquarium to find another route
Detailed Structure Diagram
Detailed Structure Snippest Diagram
Framing the Object
I wanted to highlight the objective for the player without using widgets. This is something I frequently do throughout the level, but it can be seen strongly on the bridge when a helicopter sequence is used to draw the player towards Big Ben
I also placed spotlights at the side of the bridge to help draw the player in creating a more explorational frame,
Working with Sequencers
One of the events I wanted to happen was that the helicopter would shoot the oil tanker on the bridge, changing the combat layout. Sequencers allowed this to happen by setting up timed overlap events on the helicopter.
Funnel Before Reveal
I introduced the funnel before the reveal to enhance the player's atmosphere before stepping out onto Westminster bridge.
However, I tried to approach this in an instructional way, from your typical tight, enclosed caves to the inside of the Aquarium being a dark, broken, gloomy place with no windows until you reach the restaurant and get overwhelmed with these buildings towering over the character.
Affordance
I wanted to find a way always to provide a positive affordance to the player to help ensure they are travelling in the right direction. This has been carried out by yellow bars and flashing materials to help encourage the player's paths.
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Lure to mechanics of critical
affordance& incentives
The project implements a shooting mechanic, so I needed to find how the player could incorporate this mechanic within the level. This is done by shooting a boat to kill enemies underneath.
