Unreal Tournament 3 Multiplayer Level

This is a compact multiplayer level for Unreal Tournament 3. It was entered as part of the old school Unreal contest for 3D Buzz.

It was built using original assets for Unreal Tournament 3 as required by the rules of the competition and also to speed up development.

Development

Development consisted of a design process that involved first prototyping the level in a basic block form.  I wanted to create a level that utilised changes in height and transitioned between cramped spaces and wide areas in order to provide interesting and challenging gameplay.  The level was tested in a primitive state with a variety of different players to get a feel for how it would play and to gain feedback.

It was important for me to fully test the level in its basic blocked out form with minimal static meshes and no aesthetic embellishments.  If the level had been ‘beautified’ without having been fully tested then there was the potential for a lot of lost time rearranging and reorganising it in order to fix problems.

Testing was done in its primitive state to minimise loss of time later when adding static meshes and embellishments.

Once it had been tested to a satisfactory level then static meshes and props were added to make the level more aesthetically pleasing.  Almost all of the props were chosen from the same set within Unreal Tournament 3 to ensure the level retained a coherent style.  Appropriate lighting was added, as were particle effects.

Throughout the whole design process I wanted to ensure there was a good sense of flow and pacing within the level and that spaces provided interesting gameplay dynamics while not being too hard to navigate.