Deliver Us Mars
Developer
Team Size
Engine
Release Date
KeokeN Interactive
15 - 35 (KeokeN Devs)
Unreal Engine 4
Feb 2023
Published By
Genre
Frontier Foundry
Narrative driven, Third-Person, Action-Adventure, puzzle
ROLE(S)
Level Design
Environment Art
Platforms
PC
Playstation 4
Playstation 5
Xbox One
Xbox Series S/X
Project Description
"Deliver Us Mars is an atmospheric sci-fi adventure taking you on a suspense-fuelled, high-stakes mission to recover the ARK colony ships stolen by the mysterious Outward."
Responsibilities
● Designing and creating blockouts inside UE4 for half of the levels in the game.
● Prototyping gameplay ideas, systems and scenarios.
● Implementing gameplay scenarios, scripted events and level logic using visual scripting (UE4 Blueprints) and available systems.
● Level streaming implementation, being mindful of PC and console performance and loading times.
● Full art passes and setdressing of the levels, evolving them from blockout to final form, working with the art director to concept and design several spaces and using modular kits created by our 3D environment artist(s). Mostly working with Quixel's Megascans for all outdoor environent art.
● Taking player guidance into consideration in level flow, lines of sight, lighting and art.
● Very close collaboration with other departments, being involved in design and implementation of gameplay scenarios and closely working with Narrative to ensure all story elements have a place and any gameplay scenarios or art assets are woven correctly into the narrative.
● Blocking and locking the Performance Capture (PCAP) areas early on with Narrative and Animation to ensure everything was ready and prepared before the MoCap shoots.
Deliver Us Mars pipeline
In the first version of the levels we get a sense of the types of environments we want to create. The setting, scale and design. There's an unfinished version of the game's script that we follow to lay out all story beats and moments in placeholder text cards that are visible in the level. We do the same for puzzles and gameplay encounters that are still in development and not yet functional. "Cutscene plays here of X and Y happening", "Puzzle area", "Second puzzle area", etc.
The goal throughout production was to have a fully playable walkthrough from start to end, despite systems still being in development. As the script evolved and got more finalized, so did the text cards in the level. Eventually they got replaced by placeholder VO.
After having a basic horizontal slice of the game from A - Z ready we turned one level into a Vertical Slice, pushing everything inside this level to near final quality (Art, a new modular sci-fi building kit, animation, cutscenes and relevant gameplay systems). Showing some development progress of this and various other levels below.
Herschel Quarry - Development Progress
Pre-alpha - First Draft
A simple 3D sketch to create a sense of the space and general idea of the level walkthrough.
We had some initial story and gameplay goals in mind for the player character; Find transport and cross the quarry. We also had a general idea for systematic traversal and puzzle mechanics that were going to be used for our core gameplay loops, but these were still being designed and developed at this stage.
This version of the quarry looped around the facility on top in a large U-shape, which quickly became clear was too large of a playable area, as well as obstructing to player's goals from the start of the level. At this point nothing is set in stone though and it's still very easy to quickly iterate on the spaces.
Pre-Alpha V2
In the next pre-alpha version I removed the U shape and added 3 sub-objectives buildings scattered around the quarry. the idea was that the player would first reach the elevator, learn that it needed to be powered and then have the freedom to complete 3 puzzles in any order to re-route power to the elevator.
Vertical Slice
We decided to turn this level, Herschel Quarry, into our Vertical Slice. We create a shorter version of the level, but do include the full loop from beginning to end. We reduce the playable spaces, some of the story moments and reduce the number of puzzle areas from 3 to focus on 1. We're also using the Vertical Slice to do our first Motion Capture shoot test run, in preparation for the full shoot that's planned at a later stage. I update the blockout with our new VS plan, implement all the level logic and scripted events to ensure the level is playable from start to end and do a full art-pass, using the modular kits developed by our artists and a number of assets from the Quixel Megascans library for most of the cliffs and rocks.
Final Level
After the Vertical Slice we first go through several other milestones and iteratively bring up all the other levels to the same quality level. (Going from 'Whitebox' to 'Greybox', implementing all the gameplay and necessary level logic, art passes) Gameplay systems are being finalized, the PCAP shoots are done, final VO has been recorded and implemented.
Between the Vertical Slice and final version of Herschel, some of the more notable changes made are a new playable area at the start of the level. The VS puzzle building has been moved and replaced with a new puzzle. I've moved the caves section from the end of the level to the middle. This spread out our climbing gameplay better throughout the level and kept the pacing high enough towards a higher tension moment at the end. We didn't go back to the set-up of the pre-alpha version of the level, with the multiple puzzle buildings that could completed in any order. The level didn't need as much additional puzzle gameplay and current version, with all story elements and gameplay implemented, already hit our ideal target length for a chapter's playtime. Making the level bigger again wouldn't be good for the pacing.
Herschel Quarry - Final level showcase
Overview of what the final level plays like and a breakdown of some design choices.
Other Levels
Work in Progress and final shots of various other levels from the game.
Mountainside
Labos
Habitas
Labos Wreckage
Example of (pre-alpha) gameplay scripting, trying to use existing systems in interesting ways.
Fun fact about this climbing section is the timing is actually extremely forgiving, but it always feels like you just barely make it. The panels tilt and move when the player is climbing on them, but they always fall just after the player reaches the next one, making it feel equally tense no matter how fast or slow they are.
These are some of the levels I had main ownership of, but of course making a game is a big team effort with close collaboration between all departments. Shout out to the entire team at KeokeN and for the level design and work displayed on this page most directly influenced by Jeremy Diederich, 3D Environment Artist who created most modular sci-fi kits and hero assets. Gerben Pasjes, Art Lead and Concept Artist. Merlin Woudstra and Sofia Taylor for gameplay and system design. Leander Burger game designer also responsible for most of the puzzles. Raynor Arkenbout, Writer, Narrative designer and Director. Daniel Torkar, Tech Art, Optimization and overall Unreal Expertise.