Quest Designer & Level Designer
Metal Hearts
Single-player | Creation Kit | 120 working hours
Summary
‘Metal Hearts’ is a single-player level designed for the game Fallout 4, where the player is tasked with retrieving a chip from the successor of the former dominator of the robotic industry. As the player sets foot on Ember Island, where the successor currently resides, he discovers that he has become entangled in a conflict between the sole human inhabitant and his robots, and he needs to decide whether to help the human suppress the potential rebellion or aid in setting these robots free. The estimated playtime is around 15 minutes.
Level Design Document
Play the level in FO4
Gallery
Design Goals
ENVIRONMENTAL STORYTELLING
"Show not Tell" - Set up scenes and sequences that tell a story to the player directly.
VIVID CHARACTER CREATION
Creat engaging and unforgettable characters & plots.
MULTI-ENDING QUEST
Design a quest with rather complex structre with multiple endings.
Design Process
Initial Digital Design
Environmental Storytelling
o Use the layout to tell the story
The story is about a human being versus his poor robot servants ('Synths' in Fallout 4).
To highlight the contrast and class gap between them, I decided to have the human live on the upper hill while all his servants reside in the bottom of the hill. The environment on the upper hill is very luxurious and beautiful, featuring green grass, a fountain, and flowers, whereas the bottom of the hill is squalid and crumbling, resembling a slum.
Layout Draft
Complex Quest Design within Scope
The design goal is to achieve a quest with a rather complex structure but still within scope, I decided to make a quest with a confliction between two factions and let the player to decide who they really want to help.
Human Side: Charlie wants to figure out who is betraying him and find the evidence of the rebellion.
Synth Side: Synths want to poison Charlie and win freedom.
The two ways to complete the quest overlaped as the player needs to find the evidence of rebellion, and to achive it, the player has to help synth to implement part of the plan to gain their trust. This overlap helps scope the quest down but still provide player agency.
Here is the overall quest flow:
Create Vivid Character and Plots
o Show, not Tell
The character Charlie is designed to be a childish and cruel person who born in a rich family. The inspiration is from American Horror Stories season 4's character 'Dandy Mott'.
To show the personality of the character, I crafted a mini-show once the player enter Charlie's mansion. Three synth servants kneeling down in the lobby, which immediately raises the player's curiosity. Then Charlie will ask the player to choose one from them to kill. No matter who the player chooses, Charlie will order his security system to finish the rest. This mini-show not only illustrates Charlie's cruelness, but also get the player involved, which is the technique "Show not Tell".
o Plot twist
The whole story is established on Charlie, as a human, look down upon his Synth sevants. It is hinted everywhere in this quest, which makes it powerful to twist it. In one of the endings, the game reveals that Charlie himself is a Synth and it will blow player's mind! Even if the player doesn't meet the 3rd ending, whenever they deliver the objective object - a platinum chip - to the quest giver, they will be told that the functionality of the chip is to trick the Synth who owns it to belive they are real human. This explains why Charlie will act like that and complete the story.