Father’s Molehill

Father's Molehill is a Fallout 4 single-player level in which the player will have combat with Synths and make choices based on the level quest. The player will choose to shut down all the Synths on the island to keep islanders safe from a group of crazy synths or not to shut down the Synths to protect their basic Synths’ rights, but with the consequence of most islanders leaving their island.

Goals:

1. Learn how to create a quest narrative with grey choice and proper dial.

2. A new gameplay that helps to make the level more fun and fits the fallout background story.

Gameplay:

1. The teleport machine will teleport Synths to the battlefield when the player is in combat.

2. The player can shut down the teleport machine before the combat.

3. The player can utilize sneaking to shut down the teleport machine.

Narrative:

The quest starts at Red Rocket, and the Quest giver, Sardanapale, will ask the player to help them shut down Synths on his Island. That is because some of the Synths have gone crazy and started hurting people, and the people on the island want to make sure there will be no more crazy Synths on the island, so they decide to shut down all of them. But there are some downsides to shutting down Synths like there could be a shortage of medical support, and some sick people could die on the island. In this case, the player will have to choose whether to help the people on the island to shut down the Synths.

The human side supports shutting down the Synths (Nero)

1. Synths were good, and now they are unstable, so they should not be trusted.

2. If we don’t shut down synths, no one can guarantee that there will be no more crazy Synths since the Synths are crazy for unknown reasons.

3. Some people already got hurt.

The human side does not support shutting down the Synths (Mark)

1. Synths were helpful to this island. They provided medical support and weapons. Without the Synths' medical support, the sick people on the island could die.

2. Some people are friends with those Synths. They would be sad if the synth is shut down.

Synth side does not support shutting themselves down (Nate-01)

1. Synths didn’t know why some of the Synths had gone crazy. They are just trying to protect themselves from being shut down for no reason.

2. They also want to live instead of being shut down and getting left behind by the world.

3. Shutting down Synths doesn’t solve all the problems; more synths can be sent to this Island.

Synths side supports shutting themselves down (Nate–32)

1. They are guilty that they could gone crazy and hurt people.

What I Learned:

  Narrow down the scope at the beginning is always a good choice.
Narrowing down the scope of the level can give the designer more time to think about design solutions instead of doing repetitive, useless work. Most of the engine is not aimed at making the designer’s work easier.

  More communication with the stakeholders could always help, even when a good solution is not available for the specific design issue.
I should not be afraid to argue for feedback from stakeholders. Especially when time issues prevent major changes in the level at a certain milestone, I should inform the stakeholders about the problems I encountered when making changes.

  Trying to learn what specific part of designing a level interests me is helpful.
It’s good to have certain interests in designing the level at which the designer can choose a direction to build up the portfolio for a possible job position.