"Strategy"

Letter + number combination on 5 scales, designed such that the island is shaped to control and manipulate viewer's experience to conceal and reveal the letter + number on those 5 different scales (screenshots and text explanations below, explaining your strategy for concealing and revealing the 5 different scales of the letter + number combination... so for each scale, one screenshot + some text explaining how you conceal and reveal your letter + number at that scale).

1. Large canyons break up the coastline which, when viewed from above, are seen to be 9 N's

2. There are nine snow capped mountain peaks, which when viewed from certain angles forms an N.

3. A struggling pine plantation has some dying trees that are arranged so that from a nearby high vantage point an N is revealed. The plantation itself is made up of nine 9 tree squares.

Bridge and path form a '9' when viewed from an angle

Rock in lake positioned so that the water makes an 'N'

4. '9' hidden in a barrel at the fishing docks

'N' camouflaged on the wall in fishing hut

Hidden room with 3D text that from a specific spot spells out "NiNe"

5. Video flies through canyons in an 'N' shape
Beginning of video has Morse code that spells "N9"
Hitting the 'n' key in-game will cycle through weather patterns.

Some ideas that I considered, but didn't put in:

At night, a helicopter circles the map. If one were to track the flightpath of the helicopter over time, it would follow a N and 9 shape. 
A radio, when activated, repeats the same Morse code message that when decoded will be a combination of my two characters.
wind, rain, thunder, lightning, sun, contrail, cyclone, snow. Weather patterns present in the level that together have 9 N's. (condensation, northern lights were also considered)

Some things that my tutor Stephen pointed out:

- how player gets from one scene to another (flowgraph teleportation? vehicle?)

- how to attract and direct player to move around the level (perceived danger, warm+bright vs cold+dark lighting, paths, creating visual "Edges" between objects that guide where the player feels they can move, etc)

- model some signs in 3dsmax that say "wind", "rain", "thunder", etc, with the "N"s highlighted to stand out (left 4 dead scribbles on wall)

General notes:

I had lots of issues with sound. In the end, I decided to take them all out, since it was causing weird problems. It would have been nice to have waterfall or ocean sounds, but CryEngine refused to cooperate.
I fixed my black textures at a very late stage by regenerating the textures. This caused all the textures to show up as white, and it meant I had to scramble to apply the proper colours, but it looks much better for it.

Level walkthrough:
The sequence for the video is set to auto play when the player spawns in. If you want to skip it, change it in the sequence properties.  
The level was designed so that the player would spawn where the video starts, near a boat just off the coast. The player is then supposed to take the boat and head down the interesting looking river. I took tips from the videos that Stephen linked, and tried to guide the player through my level. 
The docks, the path and the narrowing river should work together to encourage the player to get off the boat when they reach the dock. I made two docks, one high one low, since I planned on changing the ocean level when the 'n' key was pressed. I didn't have time to implement that one, since it would have required lots of testing and might make the rest of the level look odd. 
The path is a decal with a different layer texture underneath to make a nice smooth path edge. I also used thin vegetation near the path and denser, bigger grass further away. This if for both performance and to keep the player on the path. 
Instead of forcing the player to jog the whole way up the path, I placed a small barracks with a  HUMVEE nearby. If you get into the vehicle (using the 'f' key) from the wrong side, you can't drive it. So I positioned the vehicle on the right of the path to encourage a player to get in on the driver's side. Added some tire decals to guide the player up the path. Unfortunately, the car means that the player doesn't have time to appreciate all the work I put into the vegetation!
Up the top of the hill, I used tire decals again to guide car to the small car park area. I added the HUMVEE in after I designed the village so the placement isn't optimal. But hopefully the player knows to get off there. I put in a barrier and raised the hill to stop the jeep from going right over the edge.
I chose to place the village all the way up there because of the nice view! Spent some time framing it, and putting a fence there to let the player walk all the way up to the edge.
From here, the sound of the fire should lead the player along the path to the open house.
Inside is some furniture and some light sources for when the player has hit 'n' and toggled the time of day. There's an N camouflaged on the wall as well as 'secret' room. If you hit the use key (' f ') while facing the door it will open and inside is a little easter egg. 
The player will continue on the path until a proximity trigger is hit and a cutscene is activated to transport them to the next area. A flowgraph with a trigger, a sequence and the beam function is used. (Screenshot coming later)
I let the camera linger on the waterfall. I put a warning sign to discourage exploring in the wrong direction. I tried a variety of ways to make the sound work, ambient sound, soundspots, areaboxes, flowgraphs. None worked properly. So rather than have a very loud and annoying waterfall sound that cut out too abruptly (fading didn't work) I opted to have a silent waterfall. The chickens should make sounds though. Put them in just to have some life in the area. 
Crossing the bridge you have a nice view of the broken bridge and the waterfall on one side, and a plaque of the lighthouse and the lighthouse itself in the background. The lake in the distance looked too empty, so I used it as an opportunity to add another hidden N.
The man nearby was supposed to wander around, but I think there may be a problem with my Crysis installation, since the .xml file fails to load. Still, after tweaking for a while I got him to at least play his idle animations rather than standing totally still. 
Added some smoke on the building ahead that might encourage a curious player to go inside, where there is some machinery. The generator outside is powering the machinery in the 'story' but more practically, it serves to block the path down the wrong way. The things inside were initially there for the Morse code idea, if a user activated the intercom, it would start to play a looping Morse code sound. I created the sound and figured out how to put a user activated sound area, but the sounds again refused to work. Rather than waste the sound I made, I put it in the beginning of the video, and edited it to sound like one of those old school beep starts to movies. Outside is the pine plantation, with the 9 by 9 trees.
Another proximity triggered cutscene reveals the N in the trees. I scattered some trees along the path of the cutscene, but my computer was struggling as it was, so there are some large empty areas that are very briefly seen. Sorry Stephen! The mountains were there from the beginning, but I edited them slightly so that there were 9 main peaks, and so that an existing N shape was more prominent. 
The canyon flythrough was fun, I tilted the camera on the corners to give it more of a feeling of speed. To be perfectly honest, I only realised that it could make an N shape halfway through, so I changed the path to make it fit. Flying through the ocean spray was fun as well, too bad the sounds didn't work here either. 

All in all, I had a good time with this assignment. I look forward to applying the skills I learnt for the next assignment.