2 Hour Challenge: Gunpoint

 

Hi there, this is the first post for this little blog I have going on. Hope you enjoy the content I put here, want to make this a pretty frequent thing that I add to!

So getting right into it, I've been wanting to get more into level design again, so to acclimate to the waters in a way I decided to do something small. As the title say, this was a 2 hour challenge where I went into the level editor of the game gunpoint and made a little section for it. In the end it was a bit more than two hours but the challenge of being in the time limit wasn't the true focus, more a means to make sure I don't over think and move on when the project is properly done.

Here how the level ended up looking, Ill show the bottom off in a short spell. With the time limit I was trying to hold to, I didn't have much or any real time to plan ahead of time for the level development, I really had to just start and go for it.

I found it easiest to start at the end, gunpoint is basically a puzzle game when you get down to it; connect this to that to trigger this and let you to the next area or just to stop the gaurds from taking you out. Moving from knowing where the end is onwards to how to get there from my experience tends to work the best for a puzzle. I liked the idea of a closed off exit that was more of a secret escape tunnel for some big shot executive type, so I had to close that pathway off in turn to make it so only the main office had access to that section.

From there it was create a series of small rooms with challenges and a dash of theming to add struggle to the level. Such as a guard roaming the hallway outside the office, an entrance lobby with a secret air duct for you to dip into (with accompanying miscellaneous storage area to sneak in through) And Circuitry additions needed to access secret areas of the level that no mere plebian could get through.

There was one last detail I wanted to add, I noticed that there's a secondary objective laptop you can add to the map, so I did! I really wanted it to be locked off until you had shown an understanding of the level and its mechanics as well as have a big exit. so in the final underground area I added a wire tap (basically lets you access certain hacking grids, letting you connect objects that are of the tapped color).

 

This is needed to access the secret lift to the secondary objective, which you as a player had already passed previously in the level. Looking back at it I should have added a faster ay from the underground to the elevator for the secondary objective rather than making the player go though the whole level again, things for next time I suppose.

[The glass piece is attached to the backdoor area you sneak through after the main entrance, easy to notice but nothing the player can really do about it until later.]

I did plan a cool exit for the player though, you can trip the camera to open that trap door in the top most blue room and launch yourself out of there, then just leave the level like a frog rather than having to traverse the whole thing again! A little reward for going out of your way and also don't need them playing the level a third time do I?

I did add some thematic areas, love me a dash f environmental story telling, so below this is what I call the break room, little bit of atmosphere and the guard wont even notice you when you come in, just enjoying the evening.

Next is the main objective area, the CEOs Office. lots of security and his own way out of the building. (I did try to keep the building sensibly accessible, but kind of lost that at one point near the end. which would technically be the beginning of the level.)

Ok 2 last things, first off talking about the editor. Its fine, not a ton of options but what it does provide has a fair amount of potential for someone to work with; lots of factors limiting progression only for it to be unlocked and the level to be made easier to traverse, the areas are clearly delineated visually, the only real Issue I have is it has a dark and light zone feature that could use work. Basically if a light is in a dark zone it starts turned off and the guards will move to turn it back on. if a dark area is a light zone its supposed to be lit up but I don't usually have that response. There's also only two variants of the zones, way long and long; so actually using them was a bit more detrimental in the end than beneficial.

Secondly, here's a map to show the flow of the level! Not in extreme detail or anything, just changing color between noted spots like getting a wire tap or ascending a level or getting an objective. The one part I will point out is the purple line, you get a wire tap at that X and can either go down the pink line or return to where the white line starts. After getting the wire tap on the purple line, you can access that elevator on the white line and ascend to the secondary objective and go flying out the rooftop to the escape! [You only need to get of to the right of the screen in order to finish the level, the subway stop down there is just a visual bonus.]

I hope you Enjoyed my little dive into gunpoint, I should come back here at some point, really give the engine a test run on what it can do when I'm not also learning the control scheme! Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading.