Leaky_Faucet at UBI NEXT

Identifying the Opportunity in Gameplay Mechanics​​​​​​​

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What can the player do?

• Walk and sneak
• Incapacitate guards
• Deactivate alarms

What can the NPC’s do?

• Guards can walk on a set path
• Spot the player
• Trigger alarms
• Incapacitate the player

What can the environment do?

• Cameras can spot the player and alert nearby guards
• Tripwires when broken set off alarms and alert guards

Creating the Space for those Mechanics

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Basic Principle Behind the Level

The pitch for the Ubisoft NEXT Level Design Competition 2019-2020 was a third person stealth game, inspired by Watch Dogs 2 and Splinter Cell. The gameplay of the mission included the player infiltrating a location, reaching an objective and then leaving the location. The pitch document stated to use Ubisoft’s signature “360 approach” which can be summarized as being able to approach the location from any direction and still be able to enter and start the mission.

Also included within the document was to plan for multiple types of gameplay styles; for example someone who plays aggressively, stealthily, or peacefully.

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Inspiration and Justification

I started my process with the mission narrative: what would I be infiltrating, and what would the objective be once inside? I decided the mission would be to infiltrate an expo that is unveiling a new type of security drone, and to steal the plans for it. Taking a page from some of my favorite films, I used hard-to-infiltrate buildings as inspiration, typically panopticons or maximum level security government buildings.

Iterations in Development

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Change in Mechanics

During Phase 2 of the competition, the sentry turret feature was barred from further use by the judges. To change the design, I swapped the sentry turret with a security camera as well as an additional guard.

Blockout Updates

Moving further into the competition, it was made clear that crowd NPC’s could not be used. During the blockout and testing, it was found without a crowd, small levels of cover such as exposition booths were not sufficient. More cover was required to aid the player traverse the map in a stealthy manner.

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Puzzle Feature

As part of Phase 3 of the competition, Ubisoft presented the curveball: a change midway through development meant to flip the project on its head.  The curveball was to “add a puzzle element in the same area as the player’s objective”. Once the puzzle is presented and solved, the pitch has “requested that additional instant Kill Lasers are activated AFTER that player has collected the objective”.

The puzzle I created was a switch puzzle; the player must turn on switches in the correct order to activate the objective to collect. This makes the player walk around the map to activate the control nodes, ideally reusing the courtyard as a shortcut to get to each node. After the objective is activated, the instant kill lasers lock the player into the courtyard. There are three routes to escape the courtyard, each facilitating a playstyle.

The most aggressive route requires the player to cross the most distance (and guards), but is a simple ladder that gives access over the wall. The other two routes require some jump skills over cover to get to the roof, or spotting a hidden ladder that requires a few barriers to be jumped.

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