PROJECT EDEN - FINAL BUILD
- LEVEL 1 -
HQ

LEVEL STRUCTURE DIAGRAM

NARRATIVE CONCEPT

Due to the shady nature of the corporation operations and goals, it was thought that it was necessary to build a research facility which would have been as difficult to find as possible. It was then decided to build it within a remote planet, covered in vegetation, away from the eyes of the world. The facility would have looked only small from the outside while the bulk of its structure would have been underground.

This level is the entrance of the facility. This level hosts the head of the facility logistics, human resources, security and maintenance.
Because it is the entrance to the facility there are many security barriers set in place to make it harder and complicated to travel.
Clearence is only given strictly to staff members and security is highly discriminatory of any visitors.
As a measure of security there is not a centralized HQ that operates and manages the facility and its security, instead there is a sectioning of the control systems and each section controls the access to another.

Because the heart of the outbreak lays deep within the bowels of the facility, the degree of spread and contagion that Ashleigh will encounter is at first minimal and of a less degenerate nature. Once Ashleigh manages to bypass the lockdown, however, she will encouter a more visible, prevalent and free-roaming threat, a demonstration that things will only get worse the deeper she will venture within the facility.

LEVEL MISSION

Ashleigh has to gain access to the main elevator which lays within the inner lobby of the level.
The facility is affected by a large scale power outage and it is sealed shut by a strict quarantine protocol.
To reach the elevator, and from there the rest of the facility, Ashleigh has to navigate the red tape of the floor, find a way to reinstate the power and bypass all the security and control checks.

DESIGN CONCEPT

This level was designed, under the guidance of game design pillars and project specifications, to be a LEARNING level for the player and with the intent to :

- Give ample space for the player to familiarize with the core game mechanics, systems, economies and practice with the available toolkit, composed by weapons and abilities.

- Introduce the player to the game dynamic and pacing

- Introduce the player with the enemy and its nature, and beginning to understand what are the best and worst approaches when interacting with enemy encounters

- Expose and introduce the player to the variety of challenges that will be encountered on a larger and more complex scale within further levels

- Encourage the player to make full use of all the readily available skills, helping to slip into the role of Ashleigh Skelton, and present the player the high efficiency of stealth approaches against direct, face-to-face ones. This is done also to manifest one of the two key game concepts : Infiltration.

IN-GAME LOOK - R1
- LANDING PLATFORM -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
Ashleigh reaches the facility by arriving at the landing platform used by corporate ships, used for both movement of staff. The location of the landing platform used for the delivery or pick up of cargo had not be revealed to Ashleigh, deemed to be outside the scope of her employment.

IN-GAME LOOK - C1
- FACILITY ENTRANCE -

IN-GAME LOOK - R2
- MAIN LOBBY -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
Ashleigh enters the main lobby orchestrated to appear inconspicuousand and unrevealing. No staff is to be found around.
After inspecting the terminal she finds out that the corridor leading to the inner lobby, the location from which she would have gained access to the facility main elevator, is sealed by a quarantine protocol. The very same quarantine protocol has also cut off the facility from all power distribution, which would have made it impossible for Ashleigh to navigate the facility and retrieve the corporate assets.
Her first objective is to reinstate the power supply and distribution of the facility.

IN-GAME LOOK - R3
- GENERATOR ROOM -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
The generator room is barely lit and only by few emergency lights and by the blinking lights of the large machines that together compose the facility generator. The facility generator could have only been built on the surface of the planet due to the atmosphere pressure that would have caused severe complications if it would have been instead built deep underground.
Within the generator room are sealed members of the staff that had been attacked by the virus during their duties and now shamble and skulk in the dark, hungry and aimless.
In order to reach the generator control room and the terminal, Ashleigh has to sneak her way through the generator modules while also avoiding detection or survive the shamblers that lurk around her.

DESIGN & ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
This room-encounter was designed with the intent to expose the player to the tangible threat that the enemies within the game poses, despite its appearene, and teach the player that learning how to navigate an environment and how to manage and evaluate encounters with the enemy are very important elements of the game.
It is important for the player to learn how to take full advantage of the strengths of the character, Ashleigh, which is agile, nimble, versatile and slippery, while is also important to learn what her weaknesses are, that she is cannot take too much punishment and that being cornered can be very taxing for her.

IN-GAME LOOK - R4
- GENERATOR CONTROL -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
Within the generator control room Ashleigh finds that a mysterious organic mass is growing around the main generator and probably feeding off its heat and the radiation emanating from it. The organic mass is exhuding a virulent miasma that puts her at risk of either infection or suffocation.
Ashleigh reintstaes the power to the facility by operating the terminal. She now has to reach the IT and Maintenance room.

IN-GAME LOOK - R5-6
- IT -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
The IT and Maintenance room was used to control and provide maintenance to the facility systems and services. From here, Ashleigh has to identify the terminal that controls the access to the HQ penthouse, the only location within the ground floor from which she can bypass the lockdown and gain access to the inner lobby.

DESIGN & ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
This room-encounter was designed to be a further iteration of the R3-Encounter.
While previously the objective was held relatively safe and away from the threat, in this room the player will be exposed to the same threat and environmental frame but the objective will be right in the middle of it.
The intent is to allow the player to practice and explore the lessons learned within R3.

IN-GAME LOOK - R7
- HQ -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
The HQ Penthouse is the location managing all facility communications with the outer world and all of its lower levels. From here the managing director would communicate with the corporate entities above and would hold an eagle eye view over all of the facility’s operations, systems and services.
Ashleigh here finds the terminals that bypasses the facility primary security protocols and by operating it manages to lift the lockdown.

DESIGN & ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
This room-encounter was designed to introduce the player to the Slug, the game main range enemy threat, and get a taste of the danger it poses and learn how to best deal with it.
The Slug is a deadly enemy that punishes the player harshly if Ashleigh is put in a position that exposes her weaknesses, those being in close quarters with the enemy, being cornered and taking hits.
The nature of the Slug requires the player to practice the full extent of Ashleigh arsenal and strengths, agility, evasiveness, multiple abilities and precise range weaponry.

IN-GAME LOOK - C2
- INNER CONNECTION -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
Up untill here Ashleigh only found mutated members of the staff within sealed rooms, staff that had been caught by surprise by the virus which used the ventilation system to travel through the facility and infected everyone. Now that she has ventured beyond the quarantine limits, she will begin to meet face to face with the magnitude of the infection and the mutated staff will be everywhere and ever harder to avoid.

DESIGN & ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
This room-encounter was designed to introduce the player to the combined threat that Shamblers and Slugs pose when working together.
A large space is provided to the player to easily navigate and practice in dealing with this type of encounters.

IN-GAME LOOK - R8
- INNER LOBBY -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
The inner lobby is a transition room that connects the security room and the staff quarters with the facility elevator. It is used for small maintenance duties and for carrying materials, supplies, tools and equipment.
The staff quarters door seems to be shut regardless of the lockdown lifted. The door is actually damaged and the staff quarters cannot be accessed.
The elevator cannot be accessed without clearance from the head of security.

IN-GAME LOOK - R9
- SECURITY -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
The security room hosts all the communications terminals of the facility security services from which the security staff would communicate with the staff from all the areas of the facility.

DESIGN & ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
This room-encounter was designed to be the test encounter that summarises the challenges of room R3 and R5-6.
This is a room that indeed provides space for stealthy approaches but to succeed the player will need to be more cautious, as the enemy is fast, the room is tighter, it is harder to escape or distance oneself from the threat and there are many places where Ashleigh can get cornered.

IN-GAME LOOK - R10
- SURVEILLANCE -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT
The survaillance room hosts the connections with all security cameras spread throughout the entirety of the facility and hosts the terminals that control clearence to all levels of the facility. From here Ashleigh will gain free passage to all the facility and access to the main elevator.

DESIGN & ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
This room-encounter was designed to be the test encounter that summarises the challenges of room R7 and C2.
In here the objective is right in the middle of the threat and the enemey encouters puts pressure on all the vulnerabilities of Ashleigh.
There is space to move but there also is an environmental hazard. The space is tighter and avoiding the Slugs’s barrage and harmful trail will result being much harder to deal with.
This encounter was designed as a final test for the player to practice the lessons learned so far. and to be a reinforcement of how dangerous the enemy can be if Ashleigh is caught in a tight spot.