Fallout 4: Renegade
Design Process
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I began by deconstructing the base game after about 200 hours of play
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I began planning my design around the concept of "Discovered play", where the player stumbles on the quest or adventure, in this case, a radio message in the proximity of the quest building
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Drew out the paper maps and wrote up the level design document so that I had a clear idea of the quest, its stages, and any special scripts or assets that my design needed
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Built out the initial geometry to make sure my design worked on the scale of the engine
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Scripted out the quest line with placeholder dialog and any events that were crucial to the design
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Place lights and additional gameplay elements to test the fun of the design with playtesters
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Used playtester data to adjust the amounts of enemies to speed up the play
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Added set pieces, small details, and added final dialog
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Playtested again to ensure the player experience that I was going for
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Added final lighting
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Release to Market
Production Screenshots
Post Mortem
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Work hard early in a project so that there is no crunch or mid-late project stress
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Keeping documentation up to date is critical for success
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To take into account different play styles while testing to ensure the best final product
Process Screenshots
Game Engine
•Renegade Home is a plugin for Fallout 4 built-in Creation Kit.
Development Time
•The development time on this project was 4 months, with approximately 1-3 hours a day with Sundays off.
Genre
•First person role playing shooter
Design Goals
•Direct player movement with combat cadences
•Create a memorable combat heavy quest for a mid-level player in Fallout 4 base game
•20 to 30 minutes of gameplay
•1 main quest with 1 optional quest
•3 new interior areas for the player to explore
Write Up
The mod was built in Creation Kit for Fallout 4 PC. It was a mid-level plug-in that included new interior areas and a combat heavy quest. The gameplay is fast, close combat with melee enemies. The feeling of ascending and descending to reach areas of the story was a focused design-wise for the interior spaces and exploring ways to guide the player not only on the horizontal plane but also the vertical plane. I also used lighting techniques to guide the player to areas of interest. The story of what happened in the space is played out in small static vignettes, such as the last stand by a group of soldiers behind a mound of sandbags with ghouls laying dead all around them.
