by Annie | Nov 12, 2010 | Game Design
3am the night before our latest UDK level was due, half the class was still in the classroom. Most would stay overnight, camping out at school from 9am Monday through midnight the next night. Five weeks may sound like a long time to complete a 5-10 minute single player experience, but when you have to create everything from the concept and layout to mechanics and scripting from scratch, even ten weeks sounds like a tight squeeze. My Factory Frenzy level has certainly come a long way, from the original puzzle idea when I was first learning kismet, to the tentative cell diagram, and finally, to the finished level, complete with cinematics, sound effects, enemies, and a boss puzzle. You start the level by taking a helicopter ride from an island to a nearby factory. You’re prompted to shoot the colored panels to get through the factory. You soon encounter enemies, lit up with red lights. As you shoot them, you neutralize them, turning them green. Eventually, you make your way to the main assembly line area, where you start in on the first puzzle. You must stand on the moving platforms of the conveyor belts to shoot the panels of the same color, all while dodging enemy fire. Be careful though – the enemies in this area don’t stay permanently neutralized; after a certain period, their green lights blink, and then they reactivate and turn red again. After shooting all the colored panels in the required sequence, you progress to the boss puzzle, a Simon Says game of sorts. You must remember the codes you’re given in order to...
