Cableway | Gergely Szakacs

Getaway on the cableway

Overview

The player takes on the role of a prisoner attempting to escape from prison in a first-person perspective. To succeed, they must avoid guards, solve puzzles, and ultimately reach their objective: the cableway. Along the way, the player can use CCTV to monitor enemy movements and interact with physics objects to distract guards or create makeshift ladders to reach higher areas.

Project Details

Designed and developed over 4 weeks
Created in UE 5.4
Level Design, Game Design, Blockout, Scripting
Solo work
Assets from Epic Marketplace and the web ( see sources on the download page)

First steps

My inspiration for the level came from Half-Life 2's prison level, Nova Prospekt, although the final internal structure is a smaller and bit different in my level, but I kept the corridors, atriums and the roof windows. The outdoors layout were influenced by couple of levels from an old PC game, Commandos: it shaped the yard designs and the addition of the cableway as the final goal of the level.

I roughed out a bubble diagram to visualize the relation between the main spaces (prison floors, inner yard, outer yard, cableway) and added some notes where the player should be introduced to important gameplay elements. I already envisioned the yard sections to be more open areas, as hubs, to get around the prison complex.

Then I sketched up a layout for each prison level and the whole complex. Here I drew some possible puzzle, camera, checkpoints and warden positions already. Main consideration was to have linear lanes inside the prison block, and the complexity of areas would boom once outside of it.

Besides the diagrams and images, I wrote up the intended beats for the player to experience through the level:

At the start the player is introduced to the situation, basic interaction and gameplay mechanics. The player gets out of the cell and evades isolated guards.
The player faces simple puzzles involving pick-up objects, jumping and crouching to proceed.
Once getting to the ground floor of the prison block, the player can choose from to different routes to reach the next stage. Player needs to plan their actions by watching the guards' movement through CCTV.
On the roof the player can look around and identify the cableway as the ultimate goal. They can also spot the possible next steps.
The player can jump through the fence or use an underground tunnel to get to the inner yard section.
In the inner yard, they can build makeshift ladders to jump over the fences to reach the last stage.
The cableway tower is locked, so the player locates the key of the tower, and tricks the guard possessing it.
The player unlocks the tower, activates the cableway and escapes.

With these foundations in place, I went ahead to start the blockout and worked on multiple iterations to improve the gameplay and level even further.

The prison block - Linear indoor sections

The player starting in a prison cell served multiple aims: first the player is confined to a small, underground space in the beginning and gradually as they progress through the level they get to more lit, open and spacious areas, inducing the sense of getting more freedom. The other one is that the tutorial section of the first couple of rooms shouldn't be skipped, which is crucial for the player to understand the gameplay mechanics.

I split the prison block into three floors, each of them connected sequentially after each other divided by stairs. The stairs indicate the vertical and emotional progress of getting out of the prison additionally act as a safe zone and as a hidden checkpoint for the player.

First two floors of the prison are underground with simple layout of cells, corridors and smaller spaces. I wanted them to be straightforward as on these floors the player is taught via UI pop-ups how to get over the obstacles presented later by the game.

The ground floor and the atrium express a different feeling though, they're larger, more open spaces with many windows, increased ceiling and different paths visible. Here the player needs to be observant and remember what they learnt about the game so far.

The player is also presented with alternatives: they can find two different windows to climb out and reach the next stage. Both are communicated in the same way and are visible through the CCTV terminal for the player's ease.

The yards - open outdoor sections

The image above showcases the evolution of the outer level over the development period. Besides the main prison block's internal structure (discussed in the previous chapter), many building and elements have changed to bring the player's end goal, the cableway, into more focus and attention. Originally it was positioned more away from the main block and next to the outer fence. When the players reached the prison roof along the main path, they could see their end goal too far or may not noticed it at all. So I moved up the cableway closer, cut that part of the yard, altered the fences around the tower, hence the player can see over them, framing their vision towards the cableway.

Once the player has noticed their end goal, I wanted to present the player with multiple paths towards it. I made the main prison block's roof quite large and with great view over the whole complex. The player can look around and identify the possible routes in this safe zone.

I planned a higher gameplay difficulty for the outdoor section, the player can get caught more easily, so I added more safezones and later automatically saving checkpoints. These are more or less overlapping with each other and not colliding with the high risk patrol areas as seen in the picture below.

To emphasize multiple paths are available off the roof, I added two jump sections and one crawling section to proceed towards the inner yard. The player comes up to the roof at the red arrows, and they are able to identify all of the ways out, marked with green arrows (see picture below).

The colored rails on the roof helps in leading lead the players towards the gaps where the ways forward are situated. Additionally I have added visual cues on the roof (ladder, bricks, AC units) and on the ground (differently colored landscape and objects) for players to understand the connection: they can jump or climb down to proceed.

Verticality as a key element of experience

Once I got the idea to include a cableway in the level, I wanted to play with the vertical position of the player multiple times. In the end the following was the result:

Player progressing not just towards the goal but also "upwards" carries an emotional and symbolical message of getting free and closer to a haven. This haven is visible as a far away village in the mountain. The dip of vertical progression on the roof, may confuse players and it showed this was the case during playtests, although by giving a clear end goal and means to reach it, I believe this change in the elevation just brings variety and flavour to the level.
Obviously the change of vertical position could be carried over to the next level, making a nice organic transition from this map.

Post Mortem

I loved my gamejam piece Escape so much, and I only had time to include very short levels in the first version, I decided to create this 10+ minute long map. Playtests showed that players spent around 30 minutes with the completion of the level. I believe the complexity of some puzzles were too high, and the open area of the yards are also challenging the player's pathfinding.
Most of the main features of this first person puzzle-steath game already existed, but still I developed some additional functionality specifically for this new level, eg. leaning, crouching, guard dogs.
I wanted to create a semi-linear level, where the player starts indoors with straightforward lanes and progression. By getting to higher floors in the main building and once reaching outdoors more lanes and options are presented to the player to reach their final goal. I believe the transition between the indoors and outdoors sections wasn't smooth enough and could be made more evident.
The first couple of floors also serves as tutorial sections for the player getting used to mechanics, 3C and interaction in general. In later parts the player's hands are let go and they need to apply what they've learnt so far.

Level Designer