Love Island Fortnite Project

Role: Solo Developer
Team Size: 3
Engine: UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite)
Development time: 2 Weeks

In this project, I collaborated with marketing students to produce a 1 minute Love Island themed experience within Fortnite Creative using the Unreal Editor For Fortnite (UEFN).

Design Intentions

The first stage of development was to see the brief that had been given to the marketing students and then produce a statement of intent. This included many of the specific targets and stretch goals, as well as aspects such as difficulty and maximum number of players. This helped establish the key foundations for the level and help keep the development within scope.

The finalised ideas were to produce a tutorial style race obstacle course that was both accessible to new players, but also engaging for experienced players. Not only this, but also to create a lobby inspired by the love island villa, where players would be taken to after finishing the obstacle course.

Development Process

To begin with, I decided to blockout the player start area and the first foundations of the obstacle course. I decided to add a ramp that would be the first objective that all players would see, as well as establishing a golden path - encouraging players to engage with the parkour successfully otherwise suffering a penalty.

I next decided to add two smaller ramps to allow newer players to get comfortable with the controls and not suffer too much of a penalty if they failed a jump in the first section as it could frustrate some players if they fall and have to walk all the way back to the start.

I then added a blue layer with a water effect above it to simulate a small pool, which shows the player that they shouldn't be there and will be slower moving through it. And to encourage players to not just give up and run through the pool, I added a "Boogie Bomb" pickup in the middle platform as a point of interest, which should give them an incentive to complete the parkour and be rewarded. Not only this, but it teaches them about item pickups and allows them to sabotage other players and gain an advantage.

After completing the first set of parkour jumps, the player gets a quick break as well as a boogie bomb pickup as a reward. This then leads to a more tough challenge of having to jump over barriers as well as moving obstacle blocks that can knock players off the track if they get hit by them. All players will also be able to see the next objective, which is to reach the bouncepad and take them to the next parkour section.

This next parkour section featured the use of a "Grappler" item pickup which allows them to fire a project which sticks to a surface and propels them towards it. This time the stakes are raised further by being higher up in the air and being delayed even further if they were to fall. Players were once again encouraged where to go via the use of an "Impulse Grenade". The difficulty between the jumps increased with each tower, finally ending with a moving wall that could block the players momentum.

As this taught the player all about movement and item pickups, I next decided to teach the player about vehicle movement. I did this by having golf cart vehicles and speed powerups to bring more excitement and thrill to the section of the level. Not only this, but players in first place would be rewarded as they get the closer vehicles and don't have to waste time running to one. I added lots of curved areas to the track to allow for drifting and speed boosts to allow players to overtake each other.

After adding a teleporter on the finish line, I decided to make the Love Island Villa using inspiration from the real Love Island villa TV show. This would act as a lobby when transitioning to next stage of the level.

Now that the project was at a good point within the development timeline, it was just needing final adjustments. These included replacing the blockout with props/textures, adding checkpoints to guide players, adding barriers to stop players from escaping and working on the environment. Not only this, but I decided to add a few hazards on the race track which causes players to manoeuvre to avoid the obstacles.

I decided to learn to a small bit of blender to make a custom prop - the famous Love Island heart, which would act as the final checkpoint for players to run through.

Post-Mortem

After successfully completing this project, I believe that I have created a UEFN level that succeeds at providing a Love Island themed experience for Fortnite players both new and experienced. The level is enjoyable for all ages and has a large amount of replayability due to being able to challenge different players and using items to change the outcome of any race.

I believe I was efficient with my time to produce a good standard of work with minimal bugs from testing. This has given me the confidence to not only work within UEFN, but any new engines in the future.

What would have I have done differently with more time/done today?

Since I only had 2 weeks to complete this project, we decided to only create the first stage and a lobby to keep development within scope. So if I had more time, I would create more stages within the level which would also be Love Island themed. Other stages could include players pairing up to work together to complete tasks.

With more time, I would have also created more custom props to recreate more recognisable assets from the TV show. Not only this, but I would also try to learn more Verse - UEFNs programming language.

But the biggest aspect I would have changed if I had more time would be gaining access to "Island Creator Program" which would allow me to upload this map for the public to play, which would allow for more playtesting and feedback which could result in a more diverse and fun level.

Final Thoughts

So in short, I have completed a level design that has covered all of my project specifics from my statement of intent. The key thing that I have learnt is to gather as much feedback as possible and constantly iterate to improve. Not only this, but to utilise online resources when working in an unfamiliar engine. This project has played a key part with improving my level design knowledge that I will definitely take with me into future projects.