I wanted to create a saloon where Fallen scoundrels could go, relax, and get their ether fix. I first whiteboxed it like a hookah bar, with Fallen crowding around small Servitors. But that changed as we opted for more ambient movement players could see through the large window before entering into combat. To set a goal early, I put the boss's office with the treasure chest easily in sight as the player entered.

I also wanted to justify attacking the saloon. Upon clearing the first room, hidden doors opened leading to a pitch-black basement filled with cages and dangerous aliens. This led to an underground bloodsports arena where the big boss himself watched the fighting from his throne. Taking down this baddie was definitely a good reason to crash the saloon. And another tunnel leading directly to the boss's office and his treasure made it all the more worth it.

This created a very satisfying loop: the player approaches, sees the ambient space, enters, sees the treasure, fights, enters the spooky underground, fights in the arena, defeats the boss, gets the treasure, then leaves the way they came. 

I wanted to show how the Fallen captured ships from space like spiders and strung them up in this hidden port to be stripped for parts. I wanted to give a glimpse of this space early, so I made a wired window in the rock where players first entered and could see the treasure chest, boss area, and see Fallen ships taking off.

The first whitebox iteration was a cave leading to a dock, with a boss fight on an upturned ship suspended above space. As the whitebox objects were replaced with final assets by art, the overall footprint remained intact, but the ship was replaced with metal platforms, and a POI ship was placed in the distance. This worked well for the initial window view.

The part I worked hardest on for this Lost Sector was the boss fight. I chose a Servitor, as a flying boss would suit the space best. I scripted logic so the Servitor would teleport in when the player entered the space, then teleport behind cover after a certain amount of damage. This challenged the player to move around the playspace and adapt.

I wanted to tell the story about how the Hive that crashed onto the Tangled Shore was not staying put. I wanted to show that they were tunneling into places where they didn't belong, and in this case, an underground power generator.

I feel the themes for this one are strong. There is the industrial look of the Fallen halls with cables and pipes everywhere. There's a door jammed half open with Hive gunk and a treasure chest just visible beyond, and a hole ripped open in the metal floor before it. The goal was just out of reach, and the path clearly leading down, towards the base of a large turbine with rotating platforms, swarming with Hive.

The first whitebox of this level was initially too large. After adding first pass encounters, the time it took to fight and traverse was proving to be too long for a Lost Sector. So I reduced the size, removed the jumping puzzles, and simplified the method of destroying the Hive gunk. The end result is a Lost Sector that is just the right length and difficulty with strong environmental storytelling. 

I did not design the level for this Lost Sector, but I did make the finalized encounters. With the theme being a Scorn's cultish lair, I wanted players to walk in on the middle of a horrific ritual. My initial ideas were simplified to a central unit chanting and waving fire around while others before him kneeled and watched. Upon the start of combat, the fire unit would either jump down theatrically to the front or sneak around the back, depending on what the player did.

As the players pushed deeper into the lair, I wanted to make sure to account for players that rushed forward to the back where the treasure chest was, or stayed at the safety of the front, or even if they favored one side or the other. I tweaked, balanced, and massaged the encounter until it felt just right.