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The Family Business
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Trailer
Trailer
Details
Details
About: “The Family Business” is a single-player quest for Fallout 4 (2015) meant for level 5-12 players. The level is a family mafia questline set in an urban environment. The player carries out mob duties with the Godfather’s children Cecilia and Vincent – such as securing chems from sketchy criminal manufactures, collecting overdue payments for protection, and stopping anyone who gets in your way. The level focuses on the narrative / role-playing playstyle of Fallout 4, with combat opportunities depending on the player’s choices.
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Software: Creation Kit (Fallout 4)
Total Production Time: 80 Hours
Release Date: July 19th, 2022
Platform: PC
Design Goals
Design Goals
Downtown Urban Environment
1. Strategic Placement of Points of Interest
While creating the urban environment of "East Rox," important story beats were placed within different corners of the map to draw the player into exploration of the space. This allowed me to not only create a level that looked visually appealing, but also had strong reuse of space and gameplay implications.
2. Enclosing the Worldspace
To realistically contain the player within the bounds of the level, I placed large buildings and alleyways as exterior walls. To make this feel more natural, I included a large city street that separated East Rox into two sides. I used junk walls to close off the entrances to these streets - ultimately making the level feel more realistic.
3. Making the World Feel "Lived-In"
East Rox is a neighborhood in downtown Boston run by the DiMaria family mafia and occupied by a variety of residents. I filled the worldspace with unique NPC residents (who provided extra narrative background on the town), exploration Easter eggs and rewards, and spent a large amount of time making the post-apocalyptic neighborhood aesthetically look believable.
Effective Combat Areas
1. Multi-Level Verticality
To give more varied combat in the large exterior combat arena, I designed a multi-level fire escape. This allows the player to take multiple approaches to combat based on their playstyle including ranged weapons from the top level and melee weapons from the ground floor.
2. Full and Half Cover / Circular Flow
Large fuel tanks accompany the verticality along the fire escape and provide the player with large cover to maneuver and hide behind as they take fire from enemies. The fire escape also has two points of entrance, which gives circular flow through the space. Half cover is placed along the ground floor, preventing the player from being overwhelmed by enemies above them (should they choose the lower approach).
3. Reuse of Space
This exterior space is used twice in the quest. For the first time, the player fights three enemies from above - but by the end of the quest, the player (accompanied by whichever faction they choose) must fight multiple enemies from above and below. This is designed to be a challenge, but not too overwhelming as the player is familiar with the space and has backup with their faction of choice.
Narrative Goals
1. Mobster Theme Questline
From the start, I wanted this questline to revolve around an Italian Mob Crime Family. I created unique character archetypes for various members of the mob including: the Don, the right-hand man, the brains behind the operation, the brawn, and other various NPC members with unique lines of dialogue. I wanted the player to feel like they were a part of a real post-apocalyptic crime family that has survived for hundreds of years.
2. Grow Close to the Siblings
The quest requires the player to carry out missions for the Don through each of his two children. The two children are polar opposites of one another - and both come with their own strengths and weaknesses. The player must choose the successor of the Don by the end of the quest, after growing close to each sibling through a series of mob duties.
3. Extra Dialogue
There are non-mafia citizens that carry out daily tasks around East Rox. The player can speak to any of them to get more information on the situation. Likewise, the non-essential members of the crime family have similar unique lines of dialogue that offer the backstory from the mafia's perspective.
Iteration
Iteration
Level Design Document
Level Design Document
Whitebox
Initial Gameplay
Launch
Retrospective
Retrospective
What Went Well:
What Needs Improvement:
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More side quests could have helped flesh out the story and world more
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The apartment complex is slightly too cramped, especially for the brief combat section within
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Around a third of the quest is the player following certain characters to different story moments in the map which can get tedious
What I Learned:
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Strong narrative in a game is only as good as reading lines of text - unless the gameplay supplements it and adds emotional impact
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City environments need logical design: thinking of the space's past, present, and how it got to this point
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An overarching plot (or campaign) shouldn’t always drive a game’s narrative success. It’s the strength of the characters – their arcs – that make a story memorable.
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Knew the story I wanted to tell from the start, and stayed true to my initial vision
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The urban city environment looks visually appealing - and fits the story setting very well
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Followed a strict but organized development cycle which allowed me to creatively iterate without major risks
Gameplay
Gameplay
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