Thursday, January 29, 2026

Dark Souls III Level - Early Blockout

I'm about half way through the first pass of my blockout, I've done a pass of the hollow village (green), swamp (purple), and crypt (orange). I've changed quite a lot from my level design document map already, especially in the hollow village section. I found that in my map, this section was significantly more open than it should've been for what I was trying to achieve. The main area of the section was essentially an open field with only a couple instances of negative space. Another big change I've made from the map is changing bonfire locations. I moved the bonfire in the swamp too the beginning of the hollow village section, right outside of the checkpoint door. I did this so the shortcut could have more purpose, as before, it would have been more likely for the player to end up never using that shortcut. I also added a new bonfire to the first crypt room. I did this because I plan on making the crypt section larger and I plan on making the city section before reaching the first bonfire of the level again longer. The swamp has remained largely unchanged due to the fact that it's almost entirely open.

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Thursday, January 22, 2026

Dark Souls III Level - Metrics Gym

Over winter break, I spent most of my free time working on a custom gameplay pack for my upcoming Dark Souls III level. I built nearly everything from the ground up except for the basic movement and attacking of the player. Some of my scripted features include a health, mana, and stamina system, an item pick up system, a bleed and poison status effect system, a boss fog wall, a bonfire (checkpoint) system, health and mana flasks, an illusory wall, destructible objects, a spell system, and full enemy/boss AI.

My goal in doing this was to be significantly better at scripting, which I definitely achieved. I've gone back to older projects and I have been able to implement features I previously wanted but could never figure out extremely easily. I've also learned that I really enjoy scripting in Unreal Engine. I used to dread whenever I had to script a feature in my level, but now I enjoy it just as much as every other aspect of level design.

Below are some images of metrics gym which include many building metrics I will be using in my level in addition to all of my scripted features. It also includes a combat arena and a boss arena where the player can test out combat mechanics.

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Dark Souls III Level - Finishing Touches My whole level has gone through multiple detail passes, and nearly the whole level is functional. A...