Towards the end of the project. It was a fun level to design and was truly a team effort. I'll give you a briefish rundown of how the process worked. It kinda went like this...
1. One day I walked into Josh's office and was like... "Hey Josh, I want to design a big-ass gothic castle level. What do you think?". Josh responds with a silent emphatic head nod.
2. I then go to Jorge Salgado, one of our level designers, and say something along the lines of "Yo, Jorge. I'm gonna come in this weekend and design a big ass gothic castle level. You in?" I'm paraphrasing here, but he replied something like "F%^$ yeah!".
3. So we came in on a Saturday and I explained how I wanted the level flow to work (being vague so I don't spoil it). We then started tossing out story ideas for the quest. After an hour or two, we were both happy with the idea and Jorge drew some layout ideas for the exterior on the whiteboard in our office.
4. We bantered a few times, refined a few things here and there and called it a day. I then assigned block out duties to Jorge.
5. Later, he blocked out the exterior and interior areas. The early blockouts were sick, but needed some refinement. I had Jorge make some level flow adjustments and various tweaks to the blockout. Early on it was a little easy to get lost in this place.
6. Once I approved the blockout revisions, the levels went off to level art. Sean Dunny worked the exterior, while Hector Espinoza and April Giron worked the interiors.
7. Once the first pass art was in, Jorge implemented the first pass of the level content, including quest and dialogue.
8. Once we had a playable level, I played through the level multiple times and wrote notes.
9. Next, Rob Neslor (Art Director) and I got together and reviewed the first pass art. We made dozens of notes (which included new props needed) for a second art pass.
10. At this point, Jorge needed to move on to work on Twin Elms. I assigned Olivia Veras, one of our newer area designers, to take the level home. She and I worked closely to refine the quest content, level flow, dialogue, combat pacing, loot, balance, etc. She did a fantastic job finishing the level and making it shine. She worked closely with Eric Fenstermaker and Carrie Patel, the narrative designers on the project, to make sure the narrative of the area blended well with the critical path elements of Gilded Vale.
11.Then, the finishing touches (like the lit stain glass and scripted interaction art) we're put in and polished. John Lewis handled the various visual effects in the area, while Kaz supplied the SI art.
12. Finally, Justin Bell and the audio guys worked their magic on the music and sound fx of the area.
This is obviously an abbreviated rundown of how we make levels, but hopefully it gives you guys a little understanding of how a level can come together. Sometimes there is a ton of planning, writing documents, and waiting months before the work even begins. Raedric's came together quickly. It certainly helps when it is closer to the end of the production cycle and we can more accurately project how long things will take. This is because the developers are used to the workflow and tools their using, we have a library of assets to draw upon and the team is more or less working like a well-oiled machine.
