Chapter 2 - Level design! GO, GO, GO! or was it make a game?

When making a game, it's generally a good idea to figure out your target audience and target platform. For this game project, I'll be aiming at late teenagers and fans of assassination based games. The platform of choice: PC. I looked at the consoles in comparison to the PC, and I found that with  a PC, I could assign more keys for skills.

A sci-fi forest courtesy of Google Images

Concept art for Guild Wars - Daniel Dociu

Okay... now to make a a level. First thing's first: Inspiration! Thanks to Google, and my mobile phone, I have pictures! Oh the wonders of having a camera in the phone ability and the dodgy as all hell quality. But none the less I already have some nice snap shots from the local area... of tafe. Okay, so let's make a jungle level and add a splash of sci -fi.

These images help me create a design that makes a very interesting, yet nature based world. So next up, concept art for the level.

I wanted something very Forest based, just still keeping a slight amount of sci-fi happening.

Thumbnails: Don't worry, they looked a lot better on paper

-insert final level concept art- (please wait a day or two before viewing)

Characters

Now for the next important thing: characters are needed! okay, let's get three down:Noct, the musical assassin, Ami, a young guard for the forest lab and a friend, and Rex Mortum, the drug lord and owner of the forest lab.

Let's divulge on the hero of the game. Noct is an assassin that uses music to as a way to distract people, kill people, and a hand full of other things that does and does not  involve people. The idea for the name came from the Latin words for Night (Noct) and music (Sanctus). He was inspired by characters such as Hei from Darker Than Black and Train from Black Cat. Noct is merciless but still acts a gentleman to the ladies. He used to work for Rex as a guard for now guard Ami, one of the multiple drug addicts. He slowly cut her addiction and sent her to violin lessons. When Rex found out, he asked for a simple explanation, and Noct stated he needed another musician to be around. This led to Noct being put on a literal suicide mission, which he survived, but was recruited by a government agency to become an assassin. he is no heading to the forest labs, two years after the the suicide mission to get revenge, save a friend, and cause havoc with music. He's about 180 cm tall,  thin, but well built. He wears a pair of camouflage jeans, a black T-Shirt, black combat boots, and a neon glowing headset which is his primary weapon for creating music based combat.

When coming up with a female character (made her by choice) I really wanted to make someone who ha a dark past, but is a generally innocent character. Hence, I created (modelled (You know what I mean)) Ami Dollor (name derived from the words "amissis dolor" meaning "Lost smile" in Latin). She used to be guarded by Noct before the incident that made him turn against Rex. She still misses Noct, due to music he would play to her. She became a guard in the hopes of seeing him and hearing his music. My major influences for her are two of my friends, both who enjoy my music and rather make me sad. Her attire consists of a camouflage jacket and trousers, a white singlet, and camouflaged combat boots. She also wears a mood ring on her left index finger, and has her dark brown hair back in a ponytail. For a guard, this 175cm lady uses a photon katana. The general advice about handling the katana is, don't touch the blade.

And the final character: Rex, the boss of this level. He's a narcissist and a cruel son of a drug lord. He used to be on good term with Noct until he found out what Noct was doing and promptly sent him on a suicide mission. He is in the forest lab area to overlook some of the drug manufacturing. He's skilled with a revolver, but who knows if it is enough to save him from the growing sound of death heading his way. Seeing as he's a bad guy, you are going to kill him.. and you don't use/have a gun. I can't actually nail down an inspiration for this character, let alone a group. Though I created his ruthless and rather sadistic outlook on humans from a multitude of real life villains, mainly all the dark emotion that I usually have bottled up and release upon the video games I use to de-stress. Rex wears a white T-Shirt, brown pants, and black boots. His dark brown hair is slicked back with more grease then a sweat factory, and his eyes are small, but more green than evny itself. Though he may be 5cm taller than Noct, be warned that he at least holds a revovler in his hands at all times.

Next up, blueprints for a level!