Off Limits - level presentation video news

After working on both levels on and off for the past two years (one year per level) I’ve finally reached the point where both of them are polished, tested and final. I made this quick video presentation of both levels, it’s a quick freecam video of most areas in each level. I kept it simple and to the point as I want to spend my time mainly on finishing the game.

You can find a YouTube HD video on my blog here: Wesleytack.com

Some quick history on both levels:

• ol_russia (originally ND_Russia) was made for Nuclear Dawn before it got picked up by InterWave. It’s original creator Robert Briscoe with whom I worked with at DICE donated it to me for usage in Off Limits. The level layout seemed to work well in our favor because it had five main rooms and our game play was based on five spawn points that needed capturing. When I received the level I spent close to a year working on it, redesigning it to match our game play (which was being tested while working on this level). I kept the look of every area but made them bigger and added more room for maneuverability. I also updated the flow between rooms which made everything blend in together more easily, guiding the player from one area to the next. Some of the biggest changes were rebuilding the entire Submarine dock and Submarine model (which is now 100% playable), in Robert’s original design this area was only playable for about 40%. The generator room which has increased by 50% to match the same size as the opposite main base (Submarine dock), this to give both teams a fair final battle ground.
• ol_styx is a level I designed, created and finished for our original Alien game play. We had to ditch this game play for a number of reasons in late 2007. Back then I spent about four to six months working on it. After finishing ol_russia I came back to this level as we did need a vehicle based level in our initial release. The old styx seemed to be the best level I could use as a base to finish quickest (I initially used ol_undersiege, but after a months work I decided to use styx for our second level, ol_undersiege will have to wait). Same as russia I pretty much rebuilt the entire level while keeping the original rough layout. The biggest design change was the entire central station area which wasn’t there in the original build. While rebuilding this level I updated most areas art wise to bring it up to date with the present day standards. I created a new and bigger lobby, remade the entire construction site and updated a lot of old materials and assets from the original level.

We should have our new playtest server up and running within the next week, so expect game play footage of both levels soon.