Tag Archives: The Last of Us

Tower Trouble – The Last of Us Exercise

Activities, Design, Level Design, Projects,

The following is a level design exercise where I made a level pitch for a sequence in The Last of Us.

Beat 1 – Linear Narrative

Top Down

Sequence

Overview: Joel and Ellie traverse a hotel on their way to their objective: a nearby bank where Tommy is being held.

  • The party drops through a hole in the wall and lands in a hotel storage room.
  • Ahead lies a pool of dried blood and something scrawled on the wall, its message unreadable.
    1. Dev note: Visual storytelling elements to heighten tension.
      1. Who died? 
      2. Am I in danger?
  • Turning the party catches a glimpse of the bank. Their goal.
    1. Dev note: Use of a weenie.
  • After completing their left turn, they come upon a T-junction.
    1. Dev note: Option to explore.
  • Turning left the party sees the rest of the storeroom and find supplies on the shelves.
    1. Dev note: Items are 1 duct tape, 1 blade and 1 part.
  • Turning 180 degrees the party sees an elevator opposite them.
    1. Dev note: Blood continues as a tension breadcrumb.
  • However, as they approach the elevator, they see it sealed tight, forcing them to follow the blood-stained path to the right.
  • The party proceeds down the partially collapsed hallway.
Continue reading Tower Trouble – The Last of Us Exercise →

Last of Us – Bill’s Town Notes

Activities, ,

1 – Drawing Attention to a Building

  • Use of light texture.
  • Billboard with red striking sign.
  • Blue awning.
  • Depth of side of building.
Drawing Attention

2 – Affordances

  • We encounter a door that can be opened with a shiv. This in my mind established an accordance that doors that looked like this could be opened.
Openable Door
  • Later on we may encounter another door that looks like that same shiv door from before, but this one doesn’t open (affordance confusion)!
Non-openable Door

3 – Drawing Attention to Areas of Interest

  • Like the contrast on the left side, draws my eye to the area where the safe is located.
    • Sign as well as red car.
  • Like the depth on the right side, draws my eye.
    • Depth and blue police car.
Areas of Interest

4 – Lock Before The Key

In this section the player finds a safer that requires a numerical combination to be opened.

The Lock

Further down the street the player sees the glint of a note against a dark junk wall, and finds the combination to the safe written on the note. I have an issue with this!

The player does need to do backtracking which isn’t ideal, but it isn’t much, my issue relates to getting the combination. When the player gets the combination it would be an additional plus to underscore receiving this important information with a touch of VO that hinted the relationship between the safe and note e.g “hmm wasn’t there a safe back there?”.

The Key
Continue reading Last of Us – Bill’s Town Notes →