Resident Evil 2D - Enter the failed attempt at designing a level...

Well, semester 2 has rolled around, and what's the first thing I decide to do? Mess up. Good going! Let me explain.

Here's an excerpt from my Resident Evil 2D adaptation document:

I’m going to create a 2D level design for the beginning of the game, which mainly features progression through the mansion. To do this, I’m going to watch a playthrough and look at some guides so I can jot down the main beats to hit, as well as plan out how to adapt the area and the puzzles. The main important things to keep in mind are:

1. There needs to be multiple rooms to explore at one time

2. Generally, the item or puzzle you need to advance is within your vicinity, even if that’s not immediately obvious

3. Shortcuts need to be planned so they can open as the player progresses, and make backtracking easier

I decided that a good approach to take would be making notes on top of Daniel Engel’s map (which I showed earlier in the document) whilst watching a walkthrough of the game on YouTube. After spending a couple of hours doing this, it became apparent that this was not a good method, for various reasons. 

For one thing, I was trying to make a note of every beat of the gameplay. Despite not wanting to create a 1:1 recreation of the mansion and gameplay, I thought doing this would help me create a comprehensive guide to the first chunk of gameplay which I could then use to create a faithful adaptation. The issue was that I ended up making far too many notes – for the first 20 minutes of gameplay alone I had around 40 beats, as I didn’t want to leave anything out, even less notable things such as finding non-essential items. The Spencer Mansion is a maze and there are many rooms – this all makes it feel like a real place and not just a conveniently placed level. 

Getting too wrapped up in the details of the 3D mansion is exactly what I should’ve avoided doing – it just made attempting to visualise a 2D version more confusing than it needed to be. I’m glad I tried this method as I think it proves that a 2D version needs to be essentially an entirely new mansion, but it does mean that right now I still have no level design. Once again, good going!

Instead of dwelling on this failed attempt however, I'm going to immediately try another method. Basically, I'm going to watch the same YouTube walkthrough, and corroborate the info with a written guide, and jot down the CRUCIAL beats of the game. By this I essentially mean story beats, key puzzles, essential items, and boss fights, and other memorable moments. After doing this, I'm going to design a small segment of the mansion, hitting a few of the beats I note down. In this level design I want to incorporate the 3 features in my excerpt from the document, as well as situations that can show off the approach to visuals that I get into later in the document. Creating a full redesign of the mansion is unnecessary - I just want a proof of concept of how a chunk of it could work.

So I'll get right to it. Not the best start of the new semester but hey - not entirely worthless. Remembering why my first approach failed should do me well in the long run.

See you in the next one!


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