Chris Brady

Design

This level takes place during the events of Dishonored (2012), between the levels The Royal Physician and Lady Boyle's Last Party.

The level was playtested in three rounds by a total of 5 different people. Feedback influenced layout changes, objective adjustment, bug fixes, and other minor improvements. Testers' introductions were staggered so as to keep an influx of fresh eyes on the level.

See my original plans and notes here

Layout and Objectives

The level takes place at a City Watch station sitting on the river in Dunwall, and is based largely on references of Victorian era police stations.

The level is divided into 3 major areas, the front, the building, and the back. The building area has 3 main sub areas, the basement, the first floor, and the second floor.

Areas are interconnected in ways that encourage exploration and promote a sense of subversion as part of the fantasy of a stealth game, allowing the player to avoid high foot traffic areas from up above or from the underbelly interiors of the station.

In addition to main objectives, exploration is further encouraged by the placement of collectibles based on the ones from Dishonored, such as various money items, readables, health vials, crossbow ammo, and bone charms.

The player has the option between a lethal and a nonlethal elimination of their target, Captain Calahan. In addition, the player must recover the evidence that is being used against the loyalist conspiracy.

From the starting position, players are more likely to reach the start of the evidence objective first, which will send them on a hunt for the key to the evidence room. Where they obtain the key is also where they come across a readable that kicks off the nonlethal elimination quest. It is not a given that players will find it before performing the lethal elimination, but those familiar the tropes of Dishonored will know to look for it first, which I can leverage given the mid-game setting of this level.

The objectives are laid out that most players will visit every distinct area of the level throughout their playthrough, and likely engage with multiple paths between these areas. Players that don't engage with the nonlethal elimination quest will not be required to enter the basement of the station, but will visit all other areas in some capacity.

Though every area is likely to be visited, not every path is necessary to use, and thus player experiences will vary depending on their choices and are encouraged to replay in a different style. This was validated during playtesting.

Using Garry's Mod

Garry's Mod is a standalone mod for Half-Life 2 (2004). I chose to use this, firstly because I am very comfortable with the BSP tools in Source Engine and secondly because I knew that there were existing users mods that I could use to recreate Dishonored's gameplay without having to code anything new in an engine like Unity or Unreal.

I was able to utilize mods that provided me with a stealth system, all major powers from Dishonored and Dishonored 2, and movement abilities similar to Dishonored such as sliding, double jumping, and ledge grabbing.

Within the Hammer editor used for Source, I was only utilizing scripting and entities from Garry's Mod, most of which were originally from Half-Life 2 and were not actually geared towards a stealth game. Prior to starting the level itself I spent some time in a test level seeing how I could recreate systems with level scripting

Half-Life 2's enemy scripting has no direct equivalent to stealth style patrols, so I had to individually script every guard with a number of unique scripted sequences, trigger volumes, and input/outputs. In the end I succeeded in having guards with patrols cycles that allowed them to stop and wait, animate, and even return to their patrol if they lose site of the player.

All of the collectibles are just buttons that delete themselves and display a message about what you collected when used. Money valuables do actually keep track of how much you're collecting though without a hub area there is nowhere to spend money. Bone charms do not have any true functionality beyond being collected.

The readables are very hacked together and actually stop player inputs and overlay a single texture up until the player clicks.

3D objective markers are sprites that display through walls, though due to a limitation of the engine, they will get culled along with level geometry at some angles. To alleviate this I show the player a map of the interior with the locations marked at the start, though this is not something that would be present if it were a true Dishonored level.

There was not a reliable way to display the various UI menus that are in Dishonored, so instead I give the player their objectives at the start. Temporary UI popups are shown to the player when they make objective progress.