"Vatican Vendetta" is a third-person map I designed, inspired by the “Uncharted” game series. Up to this point the majority of my game development had been in isometric games with a higher focus on gameplay. so the creation of this Level and the documents focus upon a new area of development for myself.

the intent behind “Vatican Vendetta” was to developed an LDD, a 2D layout, and a detailed map, while honing my level design skills for third person perspectives with stealth and combat gameplay.

My level is based around St. Peters Basilica within the Vatican city, so I started with reference gathering and basic 2D layouts to get an initial plan and layout of the level. Once I had an idea mapped out I wrote an LDD which covered Beats, the 2D layout and Flow chart. with each section of the LDD done I went in engine and built out the level beat by beat and with critical feedback and adjustments I finished the project with a level traversal video showcasing it from start to finish.

Scale was one of the greater challenges I would face when designing this level, I originally over estimated how much space i was going to need for each level beat and ended up with an unnecessarily massive play space, however once I had further planned out the level in 2D layouts and in a level breakdown I realized my error and scaled the level into a much more manageable and playable state.

Another challenge with the Level was the third person camera perspective. Many spaces within this level during development had the camera colliding in various points, I had not taken into account how far back the camera would be on the player model and the adjustments I would need to make to walls and corners and props within each level beat. Ultimately when designing each beat i would playtest my own play spaces with a focus on the camera to make sure the player wouldn’t find and unnecessary clipping or jarring camera movements that could break player immersion and flow.