NICK PARDE
PRINCIPAL / LEAD / SENIOR LEVEL DESIGNER
VIDEO PORTFOLIO
SILENT HILL HOMECOMING
PS3, X360, PC – 2008
- OVERVIEW -
~3 year production, I came on as a Senior Level Designer about 9 months before it shipped. I took ownership of three areas that had barely been worked on yet: The Cemetery, the Grand Hotel, and the Church. Starting from designs created by the team, I modified what had already been created and made them more interesting. The main objectives were given to me, since the main story had been figured out by then, but the player path and scenario designs were all created by me. I did all level scripting, object placement, points of interest, blockout / path creation, collision, cinematic hookup, and streaming. I worked directly with the art team to make it look and feel how I envisioned, while matching what other designers were doing in their areas. The level visuals were meant to tell a story as you play through, further setting the tone.
Cemetery
Focusing heavily on the visuals and sight lines, while setting mood, I took the cemetery from being extremely flat and uninteresting (IMHO) and decided to break it up, making the path go up, down, inside, outside, weave back and forth, etc. The Intention was to never let the player feel at ease, or comfortable with their surroundings. I did both the original path through the cemetery, a short return (go back through some of it backwards) and later in the game Alex returns to it one more time to search the crypts. The goal was to make it 'feel' maze like, clausterphobic and scary, where every corner makes you question moving foward, but with enough landmarks to allow the player to pretty easily find their way (never getting lost).
Alex is searching for Curtis and his shop, and the only way there is through the Cemetery. He eventually makes it through the cemetery and finds Curtis’s Shop. Instead of just entering the front door, like it was originally planned, I forced the player to enter through the back side of the building, making full use of the yard and keeping the path interesting. Alex has a conversation with Curtis (which has several branching paths) where he eventually gains a pistol.
I setup sounds in the background to occasionally happen (barks, hollowing, etc) to keep the mood and setup several scare moments using the feral dogs. The game in general is slower paced than most games (especially earlier in the game), and very linear (though it should still open up often to feel like you are wandering a bit, but there was really only ever one place to go). This is showcased here in this area, allowed me to set the tone and amp up the moments of action and suspense when needed.
At the end of the level, Alex faints when he finds an old family heirloom. When he awakes, he finds himself outside the Silent Hill Grand Hotel.
Grand Hotel
During the Hotel intro, Alex sees his little brother who runs away (Alex is actively searching for him). Entering the Hotel, Alex takes an elevator up, and is attacked by ‘Needlers’ (this is their intro) in a sequence that was really fun to put together. Alex meets and makes a deal with a mysterious ‘woman’ who says she will assist him in finding his brother, if he finds her three relics placed around the Hotel. Alex finds his brother, but when he tries to jump over to him, Alex doesn’t quite make it and falls several floors. He finds the Mayor, and the Mayor’s Son.
This same methodology was used in the Hotel, as with the Cemetery. Make it interesting and mysterious. The original blockout I was given had the player entering from outside (with nothing to really do) and then inside the Hotel it was simply a normal hotel where you just went into a couple rooms and used the normal stairs to progress up and down between the floors. I thought it was boring, so I mixed it up. Alex has to search outside for a way to enter the boarded up Hotel, and find the axe, while navigating around the fallen fire truck. He then finds a key, that can be used to open a locked gate outside, and turn the power back on using the fuse box (puzzle)
I took the idea of messing with the player path, and added blocked off area that forced Alex to enter rooms and search for alternatively passages / holes. This placed as fallen apart. Alex navigates up and down through holes in the ceiling, move book shelves to uncover holes and placing boarded up walls around that they had to axe though. Alex is searching for the items that the mysterious woman is requesting. It was meant to be a sort of weird maze that always pushed the player forward, but kept them feeling like they don’t know which way to go, and that Alex was not welcome here.
The scary nurses and bugs had not been in the game much since the opening, so I thought it would be cool to work them back in here. I think it made for some interesting combat considering the tight spaces, and they are just creepy when they walk into a space. I wanted their combat to be a bit more difficult than in the first level, so these Nurses dodge more and have a couple of attacks that the previous Nurses did not. Then there is the intro of the Needler enemy, which is one of my favorite. With his metal blade legs, that enemy is just messed up. They were large, and tough to use in the more confined areas, but the few that I worked into the level I felt worked well. They helped make the place feel more claustrophobic.
It all ends in a surprise confrontation with the Mayor's son.
Church
Way late in the game, this level was nearly cut, but I wanted a crack at it. We needed to bridge a gap between the previous descent level and entering the church, so I created a little alley way section that showed off the church in its alternate state. Barbed wire everywhere, and very uneasy outdoors (I think this is the only exterior alt-state area in the game, most are inside). The church was always meant to lead down into a secret area below it. I decided to hide this behind a large organ, and create a simple collection puzzle around the church that were needed to solve it.
Alex would search the around the church and be presented by simple objectives, or even a dialog tree, to get the needed pieces. There were a few enemies and a surprise ambush near the end. This level came together very quickly since it was implemented so late in the project and I knew what I wanted it to be. It is rather short because of this, however, in comparison to other areas in the game.