Fallout 4: Immortal Heart
Level Designer | Programmer
“Immortal Heart” is a single-player quest in Fallout 4 that occurs after “The Nuclear Option”. The quest tells the story of the Sole Survivor, who is commissioned by those against Transfer Tech—a new branch of the Institute—to stop this tech from turning more people into emotionless synths.
This level focuses on battling synths and turrets, hacking terminals to change turret factions or unlock pathways, and gathering narrative pieces from NPCs, terminal logs, and notes. A dilemma awaits the Sole Survivor when he/she reaches the final destination with all the information.
Design Goals
Design Techniques
Overall and Sub Objectives
In the exterior part, when players first arrive in Essos Town, they can see the Institute Facility on a distant hill, as well as a slightly closer blue door and an even closer gate. This layout helps players understand the progression and the smaller objectives they need to achieve to reach the final goal.
In the interior part, when players first enter the facility, they can see the final target machine through a glass window. At the same time, they realize the entrance door is controlled by a terminal. To reach the terminal, they must go down from the second-floor staircase. Going up to the second floor, players find a security door that needs to be opened, and this door is controlled by another terminal. Through observation, players can piece together what they need to do, helping prevent them from getting lost in the scene.
In the level, players can constantly see the final target from various rooms, which helps them get a general sense of their location and reduces the feeling of being lost.
Stealth-Hack
In the teaching moment, it's crucial to create a low-threat environment for the player. In this level, several detection blocking boxes are placed to provide players with a safer space to observe and act. To clearly demonstrate the relationship between action and result, the level provides cables connecting terminals and turrets, as well as indicator lights to show the turrets' status. When the light is red, the turret is hostile to the player; yellow means it's offline; and green indicates it's friendly. In the teaching moment, a synth is placed near the turret, so that after the player finishes the terminal operation, they can immediately see the turret attacking the synth, illustrating the change in faction.
In the reinforce moment, players can see the terminal and the turret connected to it, but there's a risk of being detected at this point. By combining stealth and hacking mechanics, players need to carefully approach the target point to gain a greater advantage.
In the later parts of the level, players need to observe more cautiously, locating turrets and terminals and identifying enemy positions. This will help them plan their stealth route and ultimately gain the upper hand in combat.
Different Combat Styles
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Weapon: This level offers players a Snipe Rifle, a shotgun, and a shock baton before combat. Players can also collect laser pistols and laser rifles along the way.
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Ammo: The level doesn't provide a disproportionate amount of ammo for any specific weapon; instead, ammo for various weapons is distributed in a generally equal and random manner. This ensures that players can't rely on just one weapon to get through the entire level; they will sometimes need to switch weapons, encouraging them to try different arms and play styles.
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Encourage long-range
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Enemy placement: Place ranged enemies at a greater distance from the player.
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Cover placement: Place fewer covers along the path to reach far enemies. Players will hesitate to take the risk of exposing themselves to bullets.
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Encourage short-range
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Enemy placement
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No ranged enemies above players to avoid unfair advantages.
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put melee enemies to push players to move between covers.
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Cover placement: Staggered covers for players to move between and circle around.
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Encourage stealth
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Enemy placement: Have one or two patrolling enemies, while other enemies are engaged in their own activities. In this level, with the hack mechanism, stealth can offer a significant advantage compared to non-stealth approaches.
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Cover placement: Use covers to provide players with a path that can avoid enemy detection.
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Base and Deep Story
The surface story in the level is contained in the down arrow dialogs, allowing players to quickly grasp the basic narrative by following the main plot. The deeper storylines, however, are hidden in other dialogue branches, as well as in terminal logs and letters. These elements serve as supplemental narratives that fill in the story from different angles and give more depth to the characters.
Iteration
Postmortem
What Went Well
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Good start: The project began well, with most of the geometry and layout established early in the Whitebox stage, which allowed for valuable feedback from the outset. While there were several adjustments made later on, it ultimately provided a solid foundation for the project.
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Comfortable asking questions: I am now much more at ease seeking others' opinions on design or technical challenges I encountered during this project. Asking design-related questions often sparks new ideas, while inquiring about technical issues saves me significant time. This approach has allowed me to focus more on other high-priority tasks.
What Went Wrong
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Misunderstanding the stakeholder's requirements: I initially misunderstood the requirements, leading me down the wrong path. When issues arose, I didn't confirm the details with the stakeholder soon enough, which caused me to waste a significant amount of time.
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Crunch: Even though I knew I should have stopped adding content earlier and started testing sooner before the milestone deadline, I often found myself tempted to make changes when issues arose during testing, which consumed a lot of time. This indicates that I didn't allocate enough time for debugging and testing. Moving forward, I should wrap up content creation earlier and dedicate more time to debugging and testing.
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Timeboxing: Although I prioritized tasks effectively, I often found that certain tasks would take up more time than expected. For instance, I spent a significant amount of time revising the narrative, which delayed other tasks and slowed overall progress. During the design phase, I tended to make numerous adjustments, causing tasks that could have been completed quickly to take much longer than anticipated.
What I Learned
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Try to advance all elements of the level simultaneously: avoid focusing too much on one part of the level at a certain time while neglecting another part. For example, don't think about perfecting the puzzle elements before working on the combat. This prevents receiving early feedback on all parts of the level and identifying issues. In the end, there might not be enough time to refine the parts that were overlooked initially.
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Give players more choices: Even if you want to design a level that emphasizes stealth, don't make it the only option for the player. Players come with their own preferences and strengths, and often, you can't force them to play the level exactly as the designer envisions.
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Leave time for testing: I need to finish adding new content earlier and leave more time for testing. Although I recognized this issue during the middle of the project, I didn't take action early enough. As a result, I often spent more time than expected identifying and fixing bugs before the deadline. This made my time very tight, and the final level might still have some issues.
