The Banana Farm: An attempt at Environmental Storytelling

A few months ago I was assigned a task to design a level based on what I learned last semester, and with the limited assets I got free on the online workshop. With it I tried to create a starter level with environmental storytelling as one of it's main points.

The level takes place at a banana farm, it was the scene of a worker strike crushed by robots sent by the employers. The player plays as the only worker left and must escape without getting caught. The time was night to hint that it has been hours since the strike ended. The dialogue texts the players finds on the map will tell the story as the player progresses. The goal of the player is to reach the gates on the opposite side of the farm to escape, without getting caught by the robots.

Each robot have a patrol pattern that the player can observe and use it to sneak past them, avoiding their field of vision. Once the player is seen by the robots' field of vision they will chase the player. Once the player was caught by the robots the game is over.

As the player progressed through the map the player can figure out the sequence of events that happened during the strike. The barricades by the gates and warehouse, the various objects thrown about. They tell the working's efforts to keep the robots at bay as they were getting pushed back into the farm.

This starter level is short but is my first time trying to utilize environmental storytelling to reinforce context in the level.