Level Blocking

Arguably the most important part of this game, like all stealth games, is the level design. Levels need to be fun to navigate, with enough challenge, options and rewards to make exploration and optional combat engagements enjoyable. 

The way I went about incentivizing risk taking by the player is by hiding ammo and stealth box pickups in parts of the level which are not on the linear path towards the exit. The trade-off is that you are guaranteed to run into an enemy if you go for the pickups. If you can get past the enemy without using any more resources, then you are rewarded with extra resources, otherwise you might come out either breaking even or in a resource deficit, encouraging the player to consider risk vs reward.

Level 1: Intro

Level 1 is designed to introduce the player to the game mechanics and general flow of levels and how enemies patrol each area. There is plenty of cover and 1 pickup so the player can get recognise what these pickups look like early on. Enemy patrols are basic and not easily avoided, since I wanted the player to be forced to engage enemies directly, although a savvy player may be able to time it right so that they can speed past the first enemy as they walk around the cover, knife the enemy in the corridor and collect the pickup on their way towards the exit.

Level 2: Escalation

Level 2 is similar in concept to level 1, but with an expanded scope. There are twice as many enemies and pickups, as well as more cover to help with avoiding enemies. Since enemies will not aggro on you unless you are in direct line of sight with the enemy, so you are presented with a much more obvious opportunity to sneak up behind and use your knife to silently dispatch enemies to save ammo and silencers.

Level 3: Progression

Level 3 mixes things up a bit, you can see there now an option space with a pickup inside it, however this requires the player to navigate past 2 enemies, significantly increasing the risk to the player vs the reward. If the player wants to take that risk and go for it then they can, but otherwise there is plenty of challenge left in the rest of the level. You can probably tell from the diagram above that this level will require the player to make use of their movement skills and reflexes to get around the enemies and make good use of cover wherever possible.

Level 4: Zenith

Level 4 is where things really start to get complex. Lots of enemies, lots of options for exploration, with plenty of rewards to be had. At this point there isn't much left to introduce to the player, by now they should have a solid understanding of how the AI works, how movement works, what decisions to make and where to move to in order to avoid direct contact with enemies when necessary. I've made the detours a little wider here, so each path feels like more of a commitment.

Right now these are all the levels I have planned. If time permits, I have ideas for a 5th, less linear level, but for now, to keep the scope realistic, this is what I've settled on. You can see in the attached images that levels 1 and 2 are visually complete, where the only work left to do is to lay down the patrol paths for each enemy.

Feedback:

The main type of feedback I've been getting is that the camera is a bit erratic around corners and long hallways, which I'll be addressing in the next update.

The 2nd most common feedback I've gotten was that cover (the boxes/crates) are sometimes not in positions that are good enough to actually hide from any enemies, so I've started thinking more practically about cover placement in the level, and doing more run-throughs going from cover to cover seeing how many enemies spot me, so I get a better idea of how to tweak their positions and whether more/less cover is required.

References:

Tilemap: A Lonely Nightmare - Inside Tileset | OpenGameArt.org