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FATTYS BREAKDOWN
🕑 Added 2024-06-23 00:14:22 +0000 UTCI've been asked once or twice about my level design philosophy and I'm just pretentious enough to think I'm pretty clever. So I figure I'd make a breakdown of the thoughts that goes into building the game. At least...the stuff I actually do think about and not just go off 'vibes'.
Starting at the top, "Fatty's"
Being the first level of the game, Fatty's has a lot it needs to teach. Starting at the top is a simple room with the first combat enemy of the game. Tbh the only lesson in this room is 'shoot things that shoot you first' and I presume anyone who picked up this game knows how to play a videogame but eh, you gotta start somewhere.
For those who haven't found it. Directly to the left of the entrance is some shelves that, when interacted with reveal the first secret of the level (the shelves are shown here). This is done in reference to the chainsaw that you find to your immediate left in Doom II. This whole first room was made to mimic "Entryway" from Doom II and I intended to base the entire Fatty's level off of it in the same way I based the first level of SWEET off E1M1 in the original Doom. But, the footprint of the level didn't work for what I needed to accomplish, so only this first room remains.
The second room was INTENDED to introduce you to the zombies and give you a chance to learn they are passive enemies who do not attack until attacked. Nobody learns this lesson and guns them down as carelessly as the rest. It's tragic really. TBH I don't really blame people for doing this. It's the instincts of these kinds of games for players to shoot first. I had hoped that if players shot the first zombie, by the time it took them to kill it they'd notice the second one was ignoring them.
The third room introduces the main menace of Fatty's. The King Burgers (get it~?). The zombies are meant to be here to sponge up the damage from the constantly spawning burger slimes so you can learn what the king does without being too overwhelmed by it. 
The following hallway immediately opens up to a zombie and a fox. Hopefully, the player will notice that when the fox hits the zombie, the zombie aggro's on the fox. Hopefully demonstrating enemy in-fighting and showing how it can be used to your advantage.
The next room opens up and basically just throws everything at you at once now that you've had a chance to experience things individually. Zombies shamble about to limit wonton shooting else you draw unnecessary aggro or, to be taken advantage of to fight off foxes FOR you. The two king burgers will need to be taken care of to advance, as well as the final one in the next room:
The one in the next room is set up to be a real menace. No cover, and two foxes. Pretty straightforward though, shoot it until it dies.
In this final room I go ahead and turn the difficulty all the way up. Safely assuming everyone here is an adult who knows how to play FPS now that the 'tutorial' is over. Two king burgers at once constantly spewing burger slimes and projectiles. Two foxes immediately gunning for you over the tables and zombies directly in your path. It can be more overwhelming than anything else though, I will admit. But if you don't immediately attack the zombies and let the other enemies trigger them instead, you'll find it a lot easier.
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Well I hope somebody bothered to read all that. I designed Fatty's before fully finalizing the overall design philosophy of the rest of the game so it's far more linear and contains less exploration than later levels. More a 'Doom Level' than what would come later.
That's the tour! I'll try to get to later level explanations sometime in the near future. Lemme know ya'lls thoughts and feelings about this one below! I'd like some feedback of how everyone's feeling about the game so far~
Comments
T.Maximar
Glad to see a rundown of your thought processes snail
Doraleous78
Neat :3 👍
