7/15/25: Fortnite Manor Final Product

7/15/25

This week, I worked on wrapping up my Dead By Daylight-inspired Fortnite level and game mode. Much of the level progress this week was on the flow of the level and the mechanics involved.

One of the most significant changes I made was adding functional gates to the level through Barrier devices and buttons to ready teams. I initially struggled a bit with understanding devices like the Stat Counter, but once I figured them out, getting the player gates set up was a breeze.

A mid-week update to the front gates.

Like last week, each team initially spawns in a different location: Hunters spawn together at the front gate, and Fugitives spawn separately in either side of the attic. Each team spawn location has a button to "ready" their team; when both teams are ready, the barriers around each spawn area drop, the AI guards spawn in, and teams are able to begin moving through the manor.

Other than adding additional props for scenery, most of the remaining changes were to level and device balance. I removed railings along several areas where crash pads and air vents could be used and adjusted the amount they would propel the player.

One of the biggest challenges I ran into in finishing this level, however, was with team selection and spawning. I wanted players to be able to choose their team at the start of each round, and getting players to spawn into an enclosed area where they could choose teams, and then to respawn into enclosed areas within the map itself, ended up being much more of a hassle than I expected. One of the most significant changes I made was to add that second "gate" for each team in the form of barriers that would only drop when both teams hit a "ready" button.

The initial team spawn area.

One of the fugitives' in-map spawn areas.

Once the level was completely playable from start to finish, I began playtesting with additional people. Right off the bat, I realized that a lot of the placeholder values I had inputted for things like player and guard health made the level severely unbalanced; increasing the fugitives' and guards' health fixed most of the large balance issues. I also found that although beacons were scattered throughout the building, players were unsure of where to find them and how to tell if a beacon had already been activated or disabled.

Adding markers to the minimap for the beacons helped with some of the navigation issues. I also changed the guard spawn patterns so that they would spawn closer to their respective beacons.

Regarding general level design, I didn't need to make many changes to the overall layout. The center room worked well as a main area where more conflicts seemed to take place, while the smaller halls and rooms around the outside of the building provided more cover and places to hide. If I had more time and more people to playtest with, I would have considered opening the level up to a larger group; I did find that the overall size of the house was so large that players didn't frequently run into each other.

Initially, the three beacons in the grounds outside the manor felt very overpowered; it was easy for the fugitives to run out of the house and hide in the bushes to activate half of the beacons. However, this, like a few other small issues, was mostly solved once everybody had run through the map a few times. If I come back to this level in the future, I would like to find a more distinct object to use as a beacon; the pillars and lights I had placed throughout the level didn't stand out quite enough against the rest of the environment.

Overall, I was happy with the results of the playtesting. Everybody seemed to have fun, and once the health and ammunition values had been adjusted appropriately, neither team seemed incredibly unbalanced. My favorite part of this level was the visuals, though--I was extremely happy with how the manor shaped up as a whole.