ZIHENG XIAO
VOLFY VON VOLFSON HUNTS WOLVES
Experience Designed for Virtual Reality
This experience is an academic project made by 5 people in three weeks. I was the level/game designer on this project. This game is made for Valve Index and made with Unity.
Volfy Von Volfson Hunts Wolves:
Ziheng Xiao: Level Designer/Game Designer/Programmer.
Siqi Wang: Programmer.
Ding Zhang: Programmer/Sound Designer.
Arnav Banerji: Artist.
Namrakant Tamrakar: Artist.
MY WORK
Build the terrain environment and walkable paths to make the world interesting.
Designed enemy mechanisms to make combat satisfying and fun.
Wrote state machine code using C# for the second boss fight.
Collaborated with the other four team members during the project by divide work clearly and help each other resolve their problems.
LEVEL OVERVIEW
DESIGN PROCESS
The background story setting: You are a hunter living in a peaceful village. but one day, the demonic wolf king concurred your forest and killed almost all your friends and families. Your quest is to kill the wolf king and free your home.
So I designed the level based on the story settings.
Start point.
This is the start point of the player's adventure, I put the start point in a graveyard because of our background story. The main character monument his family and then start to revenge. Also, it's OK to make a graveyard into a dead end so the player suddenly knows which way to go in a complicated environment. We also provide a compass in the player's left hand to indicate the directions.
Overview for the first part of the game.
There's only one path to go and the player won't see the town before they make the first turn at the end of the forest. Along the way, I put some small wolves in which the player can kill each with one slash. This path is a learning path for the player to know the compass and the weapon.
On the path, the town is invisible.
In the town, there's a secret path that will lead the player goes into a hidden place, where can get some extra rewards. I use rocks and grass to block the view, but use a street light to indicate something is definitely in there. The player can see the path only when close enough.
Overview for the second part of the game.
After the town, the player will go across a bridge and see a grassland. There are two trails, the shorter one leads to the second boss and the longer one leads to the final boss. During the playtest, we notice that lots of players will directly go to the final boss because the second boss is not obvious.
The bridge, and the trail is leading to the final point. Although the splitting way is obvious but people still ignore it.
The splitting way.
Before the final combat, the player can get a shield. I put it in front of the final stage so the player will see it. And the big sword on the ground which is inviting the player to go on the stage for the final battle.
