Level Design Highlights
One key element to the gameplay of our campaign is conveyance. Throughout my level, I wanted the player to constantly be receiving information on what they should be focusing on and where to go next. This was achieved in a variety of ways - chiefly, Lighting and Bread-crumbing.
Conveyance, Conveyance, Conveyance
Lighting
As a zombie survival-style game, Left 4 Dead employs dark lighting commonly found in other horror-esque media to great effect. I used lighting to illuminate the critical path just enough so the player could see it and then surrounded the critical path with darkness.
Breadcrumbs
I chose to use lanterns as "breadcrumbs" to serve as a lifeline to the player in the dark environments of L4D. This created "checkpoints" for the player as they progressed. This was especially helpful in the environment of the hardware store, where the various shelves and debris created many dark "dead ends" the player could wind up in if they're not careful.
Composition
As a designer with a cinematic background, I found early on that cinematic composition plays a strong role in level design, particularly level design for single player or cooperative narrative/progressive games. I used framing and lighting many times throughout this L4D level to guide the player forward.
