This Town Ain’t Big Enough
Role: Quest and System Designer
Editor: Starfield Creation Kit
Process: Agile with Milestones
Tools: Adobe Illustrator for Maps, Microsoft Word for Level Design Document and ReadMe Documentation.
Design Goals:
Custom Enemy
Stealth-Lite Flow
Silly Yet Compelling Story
Level Summary:
This Town Ain’t Big Enough a stealth-lite quest that follows the lives of former actors Bud and Odell known for their glory days in Wild Space Frontier movies, and their subsequent fallout over the beautiful Opal Mae.
Odell approaches the player about a mission to recover a piece of memorabilia from Bud’s mansion. When we get there, the player is warned of the BudBot’s. Pesky mini bots that Bud has set up all over his mansion to help wrangle any would-be thieves in the old actor’s home.
Make your way through Bud’s maze-like mansion as you search of Odell’s missing prop gun. Avoiding the annoyingly persistent BudBots along the way.
Project Summary
Design Goals
Custom Enemy
Stealh-Lite Flow
Silly Yet Compelling Story
Custom Enemy
My primary goal of this level was initially to create a silly yet compelling story that the player would experience through standard Starfield mechanics and story beats. However, as I was working with the existing mechanics, I realized the stealth mechanics of the game weren’t working the way that I wanted them to. So, I decided to take on the task of creating a custom enemy.
In comes the BudBot, a duplicate of the patrol Mini Bot that is activated using trigger volumes dedicated to specific rooms in the mansion. If the BudBot has a line-of-sight to the player, and the player is within range, they will begin chasing the player down and attacking them. If the player gets too close, the BudBot boots them back to the foyer of the mansion (ala Legend of Zelda patrol monsters).
Stealth-Lite Flow
After creating the BudBot, I redesigned the layout of the mansion to fit the new mechanic. I added more space to each room for the BudBot to patrol while giving the player ample space to try and sneak around and avoid the BudBot.
However, since this is a well-lit mansion, it’s not really stealth in the traditional sense. Bud has money to burn, and he’s not afraid of leaving every light in the house on. Plus, it helps the BudBots see where they’re going.
Hence the stealth-lite design of the flow, which utilizes cover for the player to hide while not allowing them to linger too long as the BudBot makes its way along the patrol path.
Silly Yet Compelling Story
Excerpt from the final conversation of the level.
As I mentioned above, the original intent of this project was to have a silly yet compelling story to drive the player through the space using the usual Starfield mechanics. However, as development went on, and I focused more on the BudBots, the story got a bit sillier and complimentary to the mechanic I had created.
Odell and Bud were once friendly rivals in Wild Space Frontier movies. Somewhere along the way, they had a falling out over Opal, a fellow actor they both fancied.
I wanted to tell this story in a way that was both humorous and emotional by channeling movies from my childhood like Grumpy Old Men, as well as the grumpy old men I was raised around. Their language is crass yet funny while the men are secretly more emotional than they let on from their stoic demeanors.