Posts by atrocity

We are looking for a Senior Level Designer to join our team here at Probably Monsters, more specifically the Firewalk Team. Firewalk is composed of former devs from Bungie, Respawn, Infinity Ward, and many other incredible studios, with a focus on creating a sustainable game studio with a people-first culture. Come help us build Firewalk's first game! If you are interested, please feel free to reach out to me.https://www.probablymonsters.com/job/#oRwYefwj

SENIOR LEVEL DESIGNER ABOUT FIREWALK STUDIOS Our mission is to create industry-leading multiplayer games for players around the world. We are working on an unannounced and original next-generation AAA title. THE ROLE Our studio is looking for a Senior Level Designer who is incredibly passionate about games and bringing exceptional entertainment to millions of players. Our Senior Level Designer is responsible for being an architect of environmental gameplay and working with a team toward building great PvP maps. WHO YOU ARE

• You are extraordinarily passionate about building spaces for competitive shooters. You enjoy picking apart your favorite PvP shooter maps, you imagine how you would make them better, and you frequently crack open a map editor just for fun.
• You are an accomplished PvP Level Designer. You have an impressive portfolio of shipped PvP maps, which includes a few gems that are beloved by players.
• You are an effective & inspiring communicator. You have the ability to make abstract-level design concepts intuitive to other disciplines and people enjoy working with you.
• You have a great instinct for the best way to balance art and Level Design, so spaces simultaneously look great and play amazing.
• You are incredibly knowledgeable about PvP Level Design tools and workflow. You can work directly with tools engineers to make sure we have truly exceptional tools.
• You find time to play video games and empathize deeply with our players because you are a gamer at heart.
• Experience with the Unreal 4 Engine is a big plus.

WHAT YOUR DAY MIGHT LOOK LIKE

• Blocking out a new PvP level
• Playtesting the game and giving candid notes on how we can improve it
• Communicating and interacting with other departments to bring our levels to life
• Helping another Level Designer debug why space isn't coming together by applying concise design principles
• Participating in weekly sync with other designers to discuss the game holistically
• Proposing an update to our Level Design best practices

QUALIFICATIONS

• You have shipped at least one successful "AAA" title from start to finish, or equivalent game development experience
• You have strong knowledge and experience with modern PvP shooter Level Design

Quote from neptune

On 12/25/2020 at 2:34 AM, neptune said: I loved the atmosphere in map and this map giving Dishonored vibe. Good work. Keep going!

Thanks Neptune! I am working on finishing it up as we speak. Distillery does have a bit of that Dunwall vibe huh? I suppose it is possible that Dishonored looked at Edinburgh for reference as well. When walking around Edinburgh I got a Bloodborne (Yharnam) feel from a lot of the buildings.

Quote from Anarchy

On 12/26/2020 at 10:11 PM, Anarchy said: Looks awesome!

Thanks Anarchy!

Thanks Soldat!

As I mentioned above, I thought it would be fun to post some early blockout shots, and then post some final shots and talk about some of the design choices behind them. If people enjoy this, I can post a few more.

Bomb A Changes

After multiple playtests I identified a few problems with how bombsite A was playing, and how players perceived the spaces they were flowing through. In the old version, players would come down around this bend here, and be presented with option of ducking into this building to take a more protected, but tightly choked route, or they could try and work their way through the street choke and into the bombsite. The street opening here didn't have large cover, so this required a smoke or you would be destroyed by snipers. The less obvious thing that was occurring here was that players felt they were not aware they were transitioning into a bombsite/contested zone. Because you were walking down streets to get here without any changes in spaces, players did not perceive the immediate threat that was waiting around this corner. After some thought, I realized I could create a better choke point , add better cover from snipers, and create a clear delineation of spaces by adding a tunnel with vehicle cover. This also fit well with the aesthetic of Edinburgh. This would however end up impacting the secondary route that players always took into the bombsite. More on that below.

As I mentioned above, players would go through the structure's interior, and be spit out at the back of the bomb site. This had its pros and cons. However, the one thing it did allow was for Terrorists to rush this point at a much faster rate than the CT's had time to deal with. In an effort to allow CT's better timing to both bomb sites, some work went in to slowing down the terrorist by just a second or 2. This also allowed me to build a courtyard that would be a bit more memorable than just an interior hallway. This also made the approach into A more interesting, especially when I did an overhaul on the bombsite in later iterations.

When I started this level, I had a few core ideas I wanted to execute on. One of these ideas was how I wanted to go about differentiating the bomb sites. I knew I wanted one bomb site to be an interior or more close quarters fight, and the other to be a bit more open and long range. Possibly open enough that it might even be a bit uncomfortable for Counter Strike. Originally Bomb A was down in this recessed patio space. While I thought it may be interesting to fight down into this space, or hunker down to cover this area, it only took a few playtests to show me I was wrong. First, this spot became a grenade pit. You could almost guarantee that you were going to get 1 or more nades thrown at you here. Second, the recess made a lot of the fights kinda gross. You were trying to fire over the railings, and the players who were on the street above, you could only see their heads. The space really wasn't playing out the way I wanted. I had the idea to raise it up instead of the recess, and this turned out to be a much better choice. This got rid of the strange angles, cleaned up the fire fights, and made the space a bit easier to navigate through.

Quote from Lizard

7 hours ago, Lizard said: I think you could check out some playthrought from Kaldwin's bridge mission (Dishonored). They have super interesting city parts (architecture and gameplay wise) and they are close to what you have there. Loving the beer vats

Will do!

Thanks I wanted something a little different than the normal crate and barrel so I thought I would theme it as some kegs from the pub they are in front of. I talked with @Jonny Phive and we are going to put together a vmf and model package of the level so other people can use these assets. I'm not sure how much use they will get, but we thought it might be useful to others to share.

Quote from Lizard

54 minutes ago, Lizard said: Getting Dishonored vibes here. Looks great and I heard it plays well too. Good job!

Thanks Lizard! I based it off of a bunch of Edinburgh pictures I took during a trip there. A lot of those buildings certainly have that Dishonored vibe to them.

Quote from RA7

6 minutes ago, RA7 said: Love it, will pimp it asap ?

Thanks RA7 I appreciate it!

Well it's been a little over a year, but I am happy to announce that de_distillery has been completed. I originally made this thread to document the progress of the level as I built it, but I ended up getting lazy and just worked on the level without forum updates. If you are interested, the level can be downloaded from the workshop at this link.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=1843682152

Below are some shots of the level fully arted. I'm going to try and do a write up later tonight of where changes were made from the beginning to the finished version, and what I learned in the process. Props and Materials: @Jonny Phive

Graffiti/Logo "The Unlikely Duo": Jason McCord (MonsterClip) Ambulance Model and Materials: BMS Brian

Solved! thanks to everyone on the discord channel. Soundscapes must now be setup as a soundscapes_mapname.txt file and placed in the scripts folder. Example soundscapes_de_distillery.txt Your level will automagically reach this file now.

Hey Lizard, thanks for the reply, and it's not stupid. I did run Vvis, and have tested my various VSC/TXT file swaps on previous compiled versions of the level as well. No luck. I did read about the VVIS thing on the Source wiki last night though. So good reccomendation!

I am finishing up my CSGO level de_distillery and recently had my soundscapes stop working. I have no idea why and I have tried just about everything I can think of but seem to be getting the same error in game with no soundscapes playing.

Setting invalid soundscape, distillery.interior, as the active soundscape. There is probably no script entry matching this name. BUG THIS!

This error msg happens for every soundscape you walk into throughout the level. My assumption is that the manifest isn't being read properly? I copied the manifest file out of the Valve PAK files, and edited that.

Workflow: Made custom soundscapes_distillery.vsc file.

Edited the soundscapes_manifest.txt file to include the soundscapes_distillery.vsc file.

No luck. I have also tried making a .txt instead of a .vsc, no luck there either.

Anybody have a suggestion on what else I could try?

Thanks in advance,

Chuck

soundscapes_manifest.txt

soundscapes_distillery.vsc

I dig it. I'm excited to check this out

Update 9/20/19:

Fixed various bugs related to sightlines, lighting, and cover from the previous round of testing.

Adjusted light and fog settings for gameplay and aesthetics.

Adjusted color scheme and height adjustments of minimap.

Quote from Roald

15 hours ago, Roald said: Edit: Oh and use TAR radar to get a nice clear radar on a very easy way, it also helps us to judge your layout

I got TAR setup and produced a TAR radar. Way cleaner and easier to understand. Good call!

Thanks Roald. I have been running some playtests with friends as I have been building it and you are correct that the open nature of some of the streets/bomb site A does complicate things. We have been doing some smoke grenade tests, and I have made some changes over the previous iterations to help make these more effective. So far, those changes seem to be helping. However, there's always room for improvement.

I was checking out the TAR tools the other day. I just downloaded them and will try and have that up and running for the next version.

Hey everybody!

It has been a while since I have posted anything, but I thought this would be the best place to share my next personal project de_distillery. Distillery is based around a fictional distillery and is set in a loose version of Edinburgh Scotland. Since a trip I took to Scotland a few years back, I have been dying to build a level that is set there. After being inspired by de_highlands, I knew I needed to start making my idea come to life. I started the blockout a few weeks ago and try to work on it when I am free after work. I've been able to iterate on the level after hosting some small playtests with friends. I am hoping to have this public on the workshop here shortly, and then having larger playtests to gather more feedback.

Update 9/18/19: Swapped out the old Minimap with a TAR version. Update 9/17/19: After a playtest this evening, I pushed the map live to the workshop. I will continue working away and posting updates. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=1843682152

Thanks for the honest critique Shawn.

I think your critique is spot on. I really dropped the ball on providing any sort of real narrative, and it shows. When I originally built this, it was meant to be able to slip into the middle of the HL2 universe somewhere, and was strictly for a portfolio piece. Unfortunately, when that lens is no longer there and it is in the public eye, the mod doesn't hold up as well. So needing to teach the player the grenade and plug mechanics feels repetitive instead of part of a bigger scheme over the chapter/game. I would definitely say that it is one of those projects, that looking back on, I see so many things I could have done better.

It would be quite interesting to work on a project that has little to zero combat. I could learn plenty from that, that's for sure.

Can't wait to hear what you think!

Yeah of course! Both albums are free at Laden Bandcamp Page or it can be found on Spotify at Laden Spotify Page

Quote from Radu

5 hours ago, Radu said: @atrocity any plans for a third map to tie things up, give it a proper ending?

Unfortunately, probably not. After I made Year Long Alarm, I taught myself to play guitar and got into writing music. I ended up writing two albums, and continued pursuing that in my spare time. While I would love to do a full fledged single player experience, I don't have all that much desire to get back into Source these days.

Quote from Radu

On 11/17/2018 at 3:03 AM, Radu said: Just played through it for the very first time (around 30 mins) and it's really well crafted, but the ending is a pretty disappointing. Though, any half-life gameplay these days is appreciated.

Thanks for checking out my mod! I think your review is completely fair. It was originally built to feel like it slotted into the middle of a HL2 Episode, and I was using it for a portfolio piece to get a job at the time. So I knew I ran the risk of it being too short and the ending being kinda meh and abrupt.