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A custom Quake level made only using the TrenchBroom engine. All the basic Quake movement, enemies, and weapons from the original game are present.
Fish King Castle
About Fish King Castle
Project responsibilities
Level Design
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Research on Quake
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Sketching possible gameplay beats
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Gathering reference images
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Planning out the level
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Blocking out the level
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Playtesting
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Iterating
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Texturing
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Adding lighting
Fish King Castle is a project I worked on in my second year of my Game Design study at Breda University of Applied Sciences. This was my second project where I did Level Design while learning a new engine at the same time as learning the core of Level Design.
This project is a custom Quake level made only using the TrenchBroom engine. All the basic Quake movement, enemies, and weapons from the original game are present, so that I could focus purely on the Level Design aspect.
Solo
TrenchBroom
8 Weeks
First idea sketch
When I started on this project I had a pretty simple idea that still was unique in its own way. Quake doesn't have a lot of outside levels, and I personally really like reveals in games. So, I wanted the castle to be a pretty-looking reveal for the player.
First I thought about starting in a forest, but I quickly changed that to a cave, since trees are really hard to make in TrenchBroom.
It's nice to see how this sketch turned into a full level, and what stayed true to the sketch.
The level
Fish King Castle is split up into multiple pieces with each their own unique gameplay moments. The image below shows a couple of the most important sections of the level along with a low poly overview of the whole level. This way you can get a rough idea how the level looks like and how it flows.
Main Hall
Blockout
Iteration
After some playtests I iterated the Main Hall the most. The path was too narrow, so I enlarged it by a little bit. There wasn't enough ammo, so I added some on the main path to let the player walk around more. This made the section easier, so I decided to add some flying enemies near the end of the hall.
In the end, the Main Hall didn't change a lot gameplay-wise. I added some boxes and some holes in the floor to give it some more depth. I also changed the flying enemies to spawn when the player gets to a specific spot to not overwhelm the player.
Other than that, as you can see I added curving beams at the ceiling, textured the whole place, and added lights to make everything look pretty. With all these changes the Main Hall works well in the level as a goal for the player to conquer.
Final Iteration
Sketch
In my research for castles, I came across this moment in the first Dark Souls game and wanted to see how I could use that inside Quake. I sketched out how I would Imagine it in the level and afterward based the whole castle I created off of this "Main Hall".
The first blockout I did was based on the sketches that I did and the tests I did in my gym level with certain enemies. I planned on adding ranged enemies on the sides and easy to kill enemies on the main path, but punish the player with harder enemies when they fall down.
Gameplay moments
Cave Exit
First encounter
After the player saw the key, and walked around the boxes blocking them, they will see this Ogre faced way from them. I placed 1 knight in both corners to surprise the player here. This will reward the player for keeping distance instead of rushing straight in. However, armor can be found in the start to make sure rushing in is still a strategy here.
This is the start of the level where my intention was to lead the players eye towards the key in the cage hanging from the watchtower. This part has gone through many iterations to make sure the player doesn't miss the key. Seeing the key will make the player think about how he can get up there.
Castle Gate
Here you can see the castle gate where the player gets attacked from above by these 3 Ogres. They are hard to kill when they have the high ground, but it is possible. The player can choose if they want to fight the Ogres from below or go into the tower to fight them on the same level which is easier.
Testing & Iterating
Here are some examples of big iterations based on my playtesting data. Most iterations were done in the outside area of the level. This area has proven to be the most interesting to players and the hardest to make as well, so getting it right was important to me.
After making the first blockout I made sheets to track all my playtests and all my iterations. These were all done in the span of 4 weeks. These weeks purely consisted out of testing, iterating and so forth. As seen in the images on the right some parts of the first initial blockout got completely scrapped and replaced by better looking meshes. This is also where I started to get more comfortable using the "modelling tools" TrechBroom provides.
I've also made a conditions of satisfaction sheet with all parts of the level where I explain the conditions of each part for every week, including images of those parts of the level. This is a good way of seeing progress of the whole level, but it is too much to show in here so I linked the document below.
Gym
Encounters
Teleports
I tested out different possible gameplay moments. Mostly using verticality and all possible enemies. I knew verticality was something I wanted to use in the level.
This helped me figure out what enemies I should and shouldn't use. It also taught me how enemy detection works at different heights.
Lastly, I made a spot in the gym to test out teleportation. I did research in the official Quake levels and saw that this is what they used to spawn in enemies.
It was a little difficult to figure out, but doing this in the gym saved me a lot of time for making the actual level.
Shooting range
Char. Metrics
I made a shooting range to test out what is a comfortable distance for the player to shoot with different weapons.
This way I could figure out where I should give the player certain weapons, and how far away an enemy should be visible to the player (with combat in mind).
I made a place for myself to test out the Quake character metrics to know what is comfortable to do in Quake. I went over:
- Jump height (with & without sprint)
- Jump distance (with & without sprint)
- Step Up height
- Roof height
- Fall damage
- Slope angles
Planning
For the planning of the level, I started by making sketches and finding reference images of castles and buildings related to castles. This helped me create a node map where I planned out the rough layout of the level including:
- Weapon pickups
- Enemy encounters (difficulty)
- Locked paths and where to unlock them
- Elevation
- Secrets/ninja paths
- Connected reference images
After this got approved I started working in TrenchBroom and quickly afterwards made the map you can see next to the node map. This was made to help me block out the entire level, and it also inspired me to add certain sections to the level. The final "top-down map" is shown as well to compare it to what I made when I started this project. It's a lot more compact, and the obvious difference is that I scrapped the dungeon part in my level because of scope.
Architectural References
Applied references
Here you can see how I applied the reference images that I gathered throughout this project. In my opinion, the whole level looks great with the architectural references being one of the biggest factors. I learned that using architectural references is one of the most important things to do as a Level Designer, and therefor used it in all my future projects as well.
I also created some modular pieces to make building the level easier, and to create a consistent building style (all doorways are the same).
I spent some time on looking for reference images to get inspired by them. I used them for planning in the level and afterward didn't really look back at them. This resulted in some of my buildings looking very strange and out of place.
Nearing the end of the project I looked at more reference images and scrapped some of my structures completely to rebuild them using the new references that I gathered. This improved the level by a ton, and I'm glad that I did this.
