BORN TO RISE
Embedded Files
Team: 16 Members | Development: 9 Months | Engine: Unreal Engine 4 |
Published: Steam
Developed in: 2022-2023
Born to Rise is a 2.5D action/platformer game where the player is trapped in a gargantuescan underground fallen kingdom where she needs to ascend to escape, fighting monsters and facing terrible dangers on the way.
I worked in this game as:
Level/Game Designer
CAPTURES
LEVEL BREAKDOWN
FIRST STEPS
After we discussed the mechanics, enemies, hazards and other game features with my two design partners, I started to think about the Level Design. First I wanted to create a rough layout to have a big picture of the pacing and room types. We had to think about the limited time we had to make this game, the artists and programmers capacity of work were key to think of a level that didn't exceed production timings.
FINAL LAYOUTS
After making a few layouts, I iterated them to finally achieve some work that could go forward and start to shape the levels in engine.
Level 1
Level 1
Things to have in mind for this level:
Is the tutorial Level
The Level has to be ascendant because of narrative
Is the introduction to the story
The Keys and Doors System needed to be clear
The main goal of this level is making the player confortable with the traversal mechanics.
The last room had to be a challenge so I made a Vertical Speed-Run Chase room.
Level 2
Level 2
Things to have in mind for this level:
Introduces new flying enemies
Narrative pickups and where to hide them
A very different hazard is introduced: The Turrets
The toughest enemy has to be introduced at the end of the Level
We needed a different final challenge to not overuse the speed-run sequence, I recalled that we had a moving platform but was only used to make elevators so I told the programmers if we could make ine that moved horizontally to make this typical platformer challenge where thae player needs to follow the platform and not lose it.
Level 3
Level 3
Things to have in mind for this level:
As the last level, has to be the hardest
The narrative beat has a big dark plot twist for the character.
All the enemies and hazards are in this level
The level has to be balanced between combat and platforming
The last challenge needed to be different, I was running out of tools so I decided to make a labirinth to find a key for the last door, so the player feels as lost as the main character in the narrative.
Things I asked for and worked:
We didn't have time to make a boss, but using a room with a scaled flying enemy with two turrets to make it a kind of boss fight would be a great way to have a new combat. So I asked and the team let me do it.
In this game you are always going up, but after the plot twist it is suposed to be a very low moment for the character, so I asked if I could make the level to go down for the first time after a tought fight to make the level reinforce the narrative.
DIFFICULTY
One of the big challenges I faced was balancing difficulty, so I asked my design partners to test the levels and rate them in difficulty in a scale from 0 to 5, to make this charts and adjust the rooms in consequence:
BLOCKING
In engine, I blocked out and worked mainly on the Level 2 so we shared the chores to do in the levels with the design team.
This is a picture of an early version which at the end, I had to dispose a couple of rooms because of production timings. My work was to test and iterate the level thousand of times to assure the experience was the one desired in the early phases of production.
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