Alexander Westwater
Game & Level Designer
Port Kraken
Port Kraken is a pirate themed course containing pirate ships, isles, caves and pine trees made in Unity. I got the idea from a friend who enjoys pirate music and decided that it would be a cool idea to add to the various themed courses of Golf Clash.
Port Kraken
Hole 1 - Par 4 (4)
White Path
With side or tail wind this is the preferred way to play. Max topspin and a wide fairway should leave you with a second shot to the green.
Yellow Path
A pretty easy Par 4 where there's no danger of not making the green in two. Important thing is to at least leave yourself a good chance of SHIPPING it in.
Screenshots
Process
Grabbed some grass and sand textures from textures.com and changed to shades of green for each layer of the grass (fairway, rough, green, fringe etc.)
I started with a sketch on paper then started shaping the level in unity, I began with a simple terrain and water effects and proceeded to sculpt the level relevant to my design.
From there I used the textures I got and painted in the different shades of green onto the map. The bright colours being the green and fairway the darkest colours being different shades of rough depending on the elevation of the geometry. It looked a bit bland so I sculpted in some geometry to add some depth to the course.
I didn't feel the colours were obvious enough to distinguish which shade of green belongs to which zone (fairway, rough etc.) so I reworked the colouring of each shade of grass to make it a lot more distinguishable for the player. I then added some bumkers to give the level some hazards the player has to avoid as well as the sand which is the out bounds zone.
Now that I got the layout for the course down, it was time to add the assets and give it that pirate flair, this was the longest part of the process as I had to be very particular and strike a balance between what looks good and what feels good to play. Assets consisted of Ships, rocks, tress and bushes. I could off added more detail like huts, piers, barrels, chests and go all out on the pirate theme but I waned the focus to be on the gameplay rather than the player get distracted with the scenery.
Now that the assets have been placed, I began adjusting lighting and added a skybox, I experimented with a day time and night time look and decided to go for a warm sunset, it looked the best to me and fit with the pirate theme. Also implemented some basic post processing effects like bloom and vignette to improve the appearance of the level.
Some last minute additions I made was a cave and island in the background to really sell the pirate atheistic.
Conclusion
For my first golf map I say it went well, mistakes were made and corrected during the creation so I won't make those again as I create more maps, I'm glad I took the time learn and design this level as it helps me understand what goes in a Golf Clash level and how much time and thought is needed to design just one level. I had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to creating more golf courses for Golf Clash.