Paris Cinq is a personal project I created to explore the level design inspirations I drew from Arkane Studios and their "say yes to the player" philosophy, the winding paths and intentional topography of Dark Souls, as well as the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève area in Paris' historical 5th arrondissement.
During the project's development, I mainly focused on space, scale, navigation, and creating opportunities for exploration in a fairly confined space. The in-game objective is to navigate a semi-open piece of the city to rendez-vous with a character at the Place de la Contrescarpe. My goal as a developer was to use effective level design techniques to guide the players without them knowing it and have them intuitively reach the intended location.
I plan to revisit Paris Cinq in the future in order to further explore features such as Houdini, MetaHuman, and how these technologies all fit together.
Unreal Engine 5 | MetaHuman
November 2024 — December 2024
Level Design | Puzzle
An overview of the level. Here we can see the multiple paths that lead the player to the Pantheon, and therefore in the direction of the plaza after it.
I decided to add an apartment loft on Rue Rollin, as well as a gate on the street itself. The concentrated details in this area will draw the player's attention to it.
Once I have a solid foundation, I find that I can make a level more interesting if I create limitations, as well as ways to get around them. Here, finding a way into the apartment complex allows the player to jump over the gate before getting a key for it, and is just one of many paths that players can take to progress through the level.
A first draft of the level. I decided to add more! The Pantheon proves effective as a weenie and is positioned to catch the player's eye as soon as they step out of the subway.
I also took a break from gray-boxing to explore and play around with Metahuman, but I ultimately switched back to a default player model for the time being due to version issues.
The idea is to use the Pantheon to guide the player to the Place de la Contrescarpe, which is nearby. Therefore, I've made it visible from as many angles as possible, have included multiple paths that draw the player to it, and have made it twice as tall as in the earliest versions. The fact that the Pantheon is the only round building in the level also helps to make it stand out.
This street is just one of many that slants upwards towards the Pantheon. I created a general upwards progression over the course of the level to quietly guide the player. I was inspired by FromSoftware, who often use this technique to guide players into a general direction despite giving them multiple paths to explore.
The Pantheon is a weenie not just in the game, but in the real world as well. In Paris, you can use it to orient yourself towards the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève even if you are several kilometers away.
I filled in some more buildings, and added a subway. The subway wasn't originally part of the plan, but I find that new ideas come to me often as I iterate on the level. Executing some of these new ideas during iteration is one of the ways I follow Arkane's "saying yes to the player" philosophy. Furthermore, a subway has the potential to be expanded and adds an extra layer of verticality to the level.
Once my critical paths are determined, I start filling in with buildings and objects that will block the player's line of sight. Then I can get a sense for how to scale the objects so that the points of interest stand out throughout the level.
In my level design process, I like to sketch out the critical paths as soon as possible. Doing this gives me a sense for the level's scope, and I tend to keep points of interest packed closely together if possible.