“Set the Stage”

(Developed Spring 2019)

Role: Level Designer

Engine: Bethesda Creation Kit

Development Time: 84 hours

Downloads:
• Download “Set the Stage”
• Download Design Document

“Set the Stage” was developed as a Fallout 4 project. It contains two quests: the titular “Set the Stage” and the “Taking Notes” sidequest. Both start in an underground lounge and revolve around finding joy in stories. “Set the Stage” focuses on helping put on a play, while “Taking Notes” delves into the history of the lounge at the request of a gossip-lover.

The main goal of these quests is to provide fun characters and vibrant backstories in a user-paced environment. The synths in the lounge are afraid to leave and don’t have much to do, so when the player arrives they’re excited to put on a play, leading into branching options.

For “Set the Stage”, I let the player choose which story they wanted to be told. Each play has information on its production connecting it to the other quest “Taking Notes”. “Set the Stage” shows the low-budget plays themselves, while “Taking Notes” explores the fraught inner workings of the lounge.

My second main goal was to make my cells feel integrated into the world. Since Set the Stage is about a play, the Theater District was perfect for the location of my cells. Due to time constraints, I chose to integrate my cells into the pre-made environment rather than create wholly new exteriors. For the lounge, I gave it a somewhat hidden entrance in a relatively open and safe area that not only made narrative sense, but allowed me to make it any size and shape I wanted since it was underground. I found two unused buildings nearby for the other two cells.

“Set the Stage” and “Taking Notes” both take place within the same three cells: the Atom and Eve Lounge, the thrift store, and the costume shop.

Atom and Eve Lounge

This location is where both quests start; “Set the Stage” with Stephen and “Taking Notes” with Eddie. The main goal of this cell was to facilitate the quests cleanly with the layout. I accomplished this with two routes that both flowed to the quest NPCs. The lower route goes directly to Stephen and gives the player a view of the stage they’ll perform on later, while the upper route does the same in the opposite order. The theater is a cul-de-sac, so going through it also brings the player directly to Eddie. Given more development time, I would add rooms behind the currently locked doors to create more of a “lived-in” feeling and make it feel more like a real place.

Thrift Store

The goal of the thrift store was to introduce the player to the connecting narrative between the two quests. “Set the Stage” requires the player to take something from a radioactive enemy here, the radioactivity being relevant to “Taking Notes”. The main difficulty here was facilitating all the needed gameplay in a space that made sense with its outside appearance, which I did with makeshift corridors to shape combat and a locked room for the sidequest. With more time, I’d add a lower floor for more room for combat.

Costume Shop

This cell’s main goal was two-fold. First, “Set the Stage” wanted more strategic combat unlike in the thrift store. Second, “Taking Notes” wanted a space the player could examine and realize that something was off. The two floors were made to facilitate the first goal by letting the player stealthily kill the first enemy and use the stairs and racks to control the other enemies. For the second goal, I took the make-shift corridors used for combat and funneled the player past costumes and to a shelf used at the end of “Taking Notes”.

What Went Well

• Playtesters reacted as intended to Stephen and Eddie (playfully annoyed and intrigued, respectively).

• Minimal disruption after scoping-down the size of the plays in “Set the Stage”.

• “Taking Notes” was added mid-development without issue to make up for shorter plays.

What Went Wrong

• Players had some difficulty navigating between the cells, even with compass markers active. It’s unclear how much of this is related to the city’s default layout, and how much is based on where I placed the cell entrances.

• It took longer than planned to get all quest-related scripts working, delaying my testing.

• I learned how to more specifically control enemies at too late of a point for it to noticeably affect combat design.

What I Learned (Improvements)

• The plays in “Set the Stage” would be more fun if they were more involved than a series of dialogue choices. For example, having the player go down to a boiler room and clear enemies there to retrieve a smoke machine, and other interstitial mini-quests like that.

• Combat encounters need more space and better pacing in encountering individual enemies. Right now, combat in the thrift store has no real tension curve to it, and the costume shop’s lower floor is too cluttered to let players strategize.