StarBoard
Roles
Producer, Mocap, Audio
Dates
November 2023 - Present
DESCRIPTION
Starboard is a first-person, action/adventure game filled with nail-biting fights, daring escapes, and stylish parkour. Use a magic tether to swing and launch yourself through space like an acrobat or throw enemies and objects to turn the tide in battle. Wall-run, slide, and leap to elude foes, and bust out your trusty sword to attack head-on. Become Cillian Cade, a pirate thief who’s in over his head after a heist gone wrong. After he steals a magical gauntlet possessed by the spirit of a dead pirate lord, the duo sets out to find an ancient treasure vault. Along the way, they’ll have to outwit and outplay the crew of a malicious pirate captain who wants the treasure all for himself.
Development
Tutorial Level
Core Objective
The level created is a Tutorial segment for the game and all of it’s mechanics. The objective is to make a easy-to-understand tutorial to prepare the audience for the rest of the game, that fits the theme of the rest of the game.
Planning and First Blockout Pass
The project began with a planning session, using a whiteboard I drew out the intended course and made sure that I was tutorializing all of the mechanics in order to prepare the player. In order to line up with the first level of the game, the docks, and with the end of the cinematic, I decided to make the player work through a cave inside of an asteroid and make their way to the top of a watchtower stationed at the furthest end of the docks. I also had to design the level with narrative beats in mind which was a very fun challenge.
Starting with the movement section, I made a path through the heart of the asteroid, tutorializing all movement mechanics along the way, walking/running, jumping, crouching/sliding, wall-running, vaulting(clambering) and finally the grappling mechanics. The intention is that the player get comfortable with mechanics they have already encountered in other games before introducing them to the mechanics like grappling which tend to change from title to title.
As the player moves through the movement tutorial, they get some narrative beats that tease the grappling mechanics to come, in order to accommodate this, I had to design segments that could feasibly be done by swinging and wall-running, and place crystals (the swing anchor points) throughout the level to foreshadow the mechanics to come.
As the player moves through the movement tutorial, they get some narrative beats that tease the grappling mechanics to come, in order to accommodate this, I had to design segments that could feasibly be done by swinging and wall-running, and place crystals (the swing anchor points) throughout the level to foreshadow the mechanics to come.
As the player moves through the movement tutorial, they get some narrative beats that tease the grappling mechanics to come, in order to accommodate this, I had to design segments that could feasibly be done by swinging and wall-running, and place crystals (the swing anchor points) throughout the level to foreshadow the mechanics to come.
Once the player finishes the combat tutorial, a jump pad will flare to life, allowing the player to progress up the side of the asteroid to the next segment of the tutorial. This tutorializes both the jump pad and a new type of crystal the purple dash crystal which will pull a player towards the crystal.
After making their way up the player will find themselves on the other side of the bridge that collapsed earlier, and able to go into the watchtower. On the first floor of the watchtower, there is a moment that narratively needs to take place where the player character interacts with a comms station of the pirates. Once the dialogue is completed the player can then progress up the rest of the tower towards the roof. On the second floor, the player must slide under obstacle to proceed but is also tutorialzed the use of sliding in combat, as on the other side of the slide is an enemy in front of a hole in the side of the tower. This slide kick causes the enemy to fly out of the window and also tutorializes it at the same time. On the final floor of the tower before the roof, the tutorial for a collectible chest will take place. At the top of the tower the player will get the title card, and afterward will be prompted to jump off of the tower into the docks with a tutorial prompt which will show the player how to drop slash which is the last tutorial in this portion of the game.
Second Blockout Pass and Initial Set Dressing
For my next task I had to further refine the blockout and model out the caves that would be the movement section of the tutorial. I exported out the initial blockout as a fbx and imported it into Maya. I proceeded to model out the caves section of the level making sure to keep the original metrics as much as possible.
Once done with this process I imported the caves into Unreal and set up collisions, playtesting them to make sure everything worked and was the correct scale. After I was satisfied with the condition of the caves themselves I modeled and sculpted out the asteroid that the caves were going through as well as the wall that would hide the rest of the game from the player in order to give the top of the tower a cinematic shot.
I then again imported it into Unreal to check my work making sure that it was the appropriate size and lined up correctly with the caves section. After this was done, I finally modeled/sculpted out the watchtower platform and the combat section of the tutorial.
Final Set Dressing and Clutter Pass
I then moved on to my final set dressing, my first priority was to make sure all blockout meshes were replaced with assets being used in game. I had to replace the platforms at the beginning and end of the caves, the scaffolding leading up to the tower, and the tower itself. During this I addressed some feedback given to me during playtesting, making the top floor to the roof transition a final movement skill check before the player gets into the game proper. Once these were placed, I added structural assets that would explain how things were being held together, for example, I added braces to the bottoms of the scaffolding, and combined the asteroid pieces together with the help of rock assets to hide any seams from modeling making the movement asteroid, the wall, and the tower platform into one large asteroid. I then worked with programmers to address the needs of the tutorial like simple enemy types and a trigger box that pauses the players movement for the grappling tutorial. From here I moved on to the cluttering phase of the project, attempting to make the caves feel more natural and to make the tower feel lived in. In this process the caves took the most time, placing assets to make the caves feel more natural instead of the straight, clean look that the model provided. I finally added more lighting to the places that needed them, candles, candelabras, torches, etc.