Psycho_Sam
Sam joined
Sam starting modding with the Unreal engine in 2006 and his first project was a mod for 'Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45' called 'Mare Nostrum'. Joining the team as a level designer he quickly found his way into the role as lead producer for the mod and became the public face of the development team. 'Mare Nostrum' subsequently became the first ever non-source engine mod to be released over Steam. Sam is now the resident project manager/producer for Undrawn Reality, which is really just a fancy way of saying he doesn’t do anything and basks in the glory achieved by the hard work of others! Often found drawing fancy diagrams or making lists, or even tables of lists, he also likes to get involved with design work when allowed. Sam already has a project released on Steam and is now keen to see the day when Undrawn Reality release the sure-fire smash hit Llamas of War. It seems that the experience has gone to his head a little bit…
Killing Floor is a survival horror game created by Tripwire Interactive. It uses the Unreal 2.5 engine and my custom map was created for the Grindhouse mapping contest. I did the level design and construction whilst my friend and co-worker Samuel Palpant created the artwork. The concept was to create an enclosed, dark and creepy atmosphere to stay in keeping with the scenario and genre. I took inspiration from the horror film 'Creep' and decided to set the level in the London Underground network. The London Underground is a rather scary place when deserted and various ghost sightings have been reported, therefore I felt it would fit prefectly into Killing Floor. The underground setting would allow us to light areas exactly how we wanted and also allow for good optimisation and easy options for controlling player movement and the flow of interaction. Typical Killing Floor maps were set up as arenas, where players did not have to move position unless they wanted to. This provided a challenge to prevent players 'camping' in certain safer points in the map, therefore this became integral to my design. Inbetween waves of specimens the players have a time window in which they can visit a trader to buy ammo, armour and weapons. Level designers designate various trader locations and then one is selected at random in each interval. In order to create interesting paths to the trader locations I included areas with very low level lighting. This created inherant risks for the players as they would need to use their flashlights (which only last for a short time before they need to recharge). However the lighting can be restored to these areas if the players can find the generators within the level. This small gameplay element gave the players something to find and activate in order to help themselves in later waves. Giving players this extra tactical choice made the gameplay interesting and unique from other maps.