Walkthrough Video
Summary
Narrative and Setting
The "Midwich Elementary School" in the game "Dead By Daylight" is a re-imagining of the old level from Silent Hill "Midwhich Elementary School". This was introduced during the Silent Hill event (season 16), where Cheryl Mason, Pyramid Head and the map were brought in.
Here is the lore behind the environment:
To students who were bullied by their teachers and classmates, attending Midwich Elementary School was comparable to torture. As the Order's grip on the town's supernatural energies tightened, a transformation occurred. The childhood trauma that took place in the building manifested itself into a twisted, nightmarish design.
Though desks and textbooks remain, they are eerily contrasted with stained walls, rusted chains, and hanging cadavers. Any notion that this could have been a place of innocence and learning has long since faded.
Level Layout
Top down view of level
My rework was designed to have the top floor be combined with the bottom, fixing one of the main issues of the level where players would hear the killer's radius even when above them. This also reduced the annoyances with traversal, as going between floors is not only tedious, but eventually leads to a disadvantage for players.
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This decision also allowed for an easier time in locating generators, totems and hooks, levelling out another fundamental flaw with the original map.
Level Objectives
The main objectives for players and the killer remain the same, players must fix generators and escape, killers must eliminate all players. With the lack of a second floor and a larger, single levelled map all players are able to locate these objectives much easier (this includes the killer finding players).
Workflow
Documentation and Prototyping
The main prototypes I worked on during this project were a few variations of the rework itself, trying to find a good middle ground between hook and generator spawns, implementing the shack, as well as adding the various loops into the rooms themselves.
FINAL LAYOUT VARIATION
This then allowed me to work faster and with ease, having preset colours for each main mechanic in the game (note the table on the right above). With this I started working, fixing the various scaling and in-engine distance issues.
Greyboxing and Iteration
After the final greybox was completed, I worked on playtesting the level with some friends who play DBD and get their opinion on how the map felt. After a few test runs and some changes to the misc pallet and vault locations, I started adding lockers and objects around the map to both fill and change the playable space, especially for the long hallways.
After finalising the various lockers, interactable locations like pallets, totems, windows, etc. I then moved on to some small set dressing and finishing off the shack.
Exit gate area
Inside of the shack
The basement (bottom of shack)
Lighting and set dressing
Post Mortem
In the end I was happy with what I completed by the end of the 3 week time limit, though a few issues that popped up towards the end. The main issues I found were something I call "TTH" (Time To Hook) and the earlier blockout. I spent the majority of the project working on the layout that when I hopped in I didn't have a great amount of time to making variations of the blockout, making the level and it's quality in some areas subpar. If I had focused less time on drawing the layout and more time in-engine then I would have most likely produced better work and my blockout would have had a better overall design.
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The other issue was TTH. I noticed this on the last day of the project, even after playtesting. The time it took for a killer from any one point on the map to then walk to a hook was incredibly short as I had misjudged the speed penalty in which killers have when carrying a player. Though this wasn't a game breaking design flaw it still was quite noticeable towards the end.
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Points to take away from the project:
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Focus on completing an equal amount of work for each area of the project
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research more in-depth areas of the target game when designing a level
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Have a solid understanding of the various nuances before the blockout phase
Misc Images
