Help with Level Design

Hello!

I'd like to get some advice on level design on the stuff I've done already. I'm attempting to keep things simple, the view is overhead and I don't want a ceiling to be shown. The camera follows the player, but it cannot be rotated.



My trouble here is the walls, they seem off to me. I decided to get rid of the bottom walls and previously I didn't have walls alongside the right edges either but then I decided to add them. Towards the left edge of the room is where the room will exit into the corridor. (transition into a new scene) There's currently a placeholder 'mat' where the door is - I'm thinking of adding a white glow here or something here later though.

Can anyone share their thoughts or point out anything that looks weird? Any help would be appreciated!

 

I actually don't see much wrong with this. I have only a couple of suggestions:

1. There are characters and props that are taller than the walls. In the player's mental model (or, to be more precise, my mental model after looking at it for 10 seconds), there's a ceiling where the walls end vertically. Having anything taller than the walls breaks that mental model, because in my mind, they're busting through the ceiling.
2. I feel like the edge on the left side should have a wall closer to the player, even though the main room's wall closest to the player don't. Maybe these front walls should only disappear when the player is in their respective room?
3. I'm pretty sure I've seen an art style like this before. Find some of those games (I can't name any off the top of my head), look at what they do, and copy anything that's not iconic to that game (and, of course, that wouldn't replace something iconic to your game).

 

You could try inclining the camera further, but I think what you currently have is fine, especially if you make the changes DallonF suggested.

Alien Swarm (free to download on Steam) would probably be a useful reference, as the camera is fixed in it too.

 

Thanks for the input! I'll try playing around with the camera and increasing the size of the walls. The right side of the room where the wall goes up another level (next to the stairs) is what really looked weird to me. Guess it wasn't picked up by anyone else, but I'll see if the suggestions can make it less weird.

I'll probably respond here again around tomorrow with the updates. Busy day.

 

I think this would do wonders for that scene, which looks great anyway.

You could also add some partially transparent walls or "wire frames" in places that normal walls may block the camera. Something subtle that the player will understand as being a wall without distorting their vision of the scene. I think this could help "close off" the space so it feels more like a contained area.

 

Here's an update: I added walls all the way around the room, and scaled their height up a little. I have also adjusted the camera so that now it looks down at a greater angle - and a few other tiny adjustments. The doorway still looks weird though hah! Maybe I should actually add a door instead of the big step into the nether.

 

Looks great!

 

Looking good! You might want to find something to do with the blackness outside the room, too. Maybe show what's outside the room, deemphasized a bit? I don't know enough about the lore of this game to recommend specifics.

 

I'm wondering that myself, not sure what to do with it just yet. I've played around with hiding the walls on the outside by making them black. Looks much better than showing the walls, but still the black outside could be more interesting.

 

Looks good

 

Wow!
You have a really nice Graphical Art Style!
Very well done.
Good job!

 

Looks good. Much better with the low lighting level. In the first example there was way too much contrast in the level. And still you might want to make areas of the level where there are little contrast and less detail, which will create a visual variety and will allow eyes to rest. For example those grey plates in the middle of the level. If you were to remove the black details from them and make black ones on white floor plates lighter, it might work better for the level in general.

So yeah, it is pretty neat, just a little bit overloaded to my eye. Notice that in Alien Swarm level details are much more subtle.

 

wow hiding the walls really made a HUGE difference..
it looks fine having black ... its like path of exile caves

 

I think you need to even out the distribution of the blue glow, imo.

 

Unless it's a horror game

I wanted to share this: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf

It's the Valve's character design guidelines for Dota 2 but the principles apply to any type of visual design. Very important stuff!!