Level Designer
Level Designer
Team Neighsayers
Team Neighsayers
(May 13, 2024 - August 23, 2024)
(May 13, 2024 - August 23, 2024)
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Project: HERO was a first person, single player hero shooter developed by a team of 60 college students over the course of a summer.
Project: HERO was a first person, single player hero shooter developed by a team of 60 college students over the course of a summer.
Roles and Deliverables
Roles and Deliverables
I was part of the team responsible for both designing and implementing the playable levels in the game. While this does mean I also had to do texturing, programming, and even music work, my main focus was the actual design throughout. This included the geometry, enemy placement, and purpose of every section of the level, as well as level theming and new mechanics.
I worked on two of the eight levels in the game. The first, which was created in collaboration with another designer on the team, was Paradise Perch. We started by brainstorming a theme to work with, as each level of Project: HERO is intended to work gameplay-wise around its theme--whatever theme we chose would influence not just geometry but enemies and mechanics. My designing partner, Soph Caley, came up with some simple two-word themes, one of which was "Tropical Paradise". They described this theme as having beaches on top of buildings, and I thought that it'd be entertaining if the reason there were manmade beaches on the rooftops of buildings was because the city was mostly submerged underwater. This gave way to the main hazard of the level being a rising tide that the player has to swim through if and when it gets high enough.
The second level, developed in response to mixed feedback on Paradise, was a solo project. Mid-development, our team found designing levels around a blend of two themes had somehow only led to more homogenous levels rather than ones that stood out. To pivot away from this, I decided to make a level that, instead of blending themes, had its theme develop from one to another over the course of the level. This led to The World Stage, a level that starts as a regular theater, only to mutate into an actual city on a non-Euclidean stage.
Geometry and Multiple Characters
Geometry and Multiple Characters
For Paradise Perch, I mapped out the first and third sections, while the middle section was mapped by Soph. The first section is the messiest, essentially being an obstacle course that twists around itself--the idea being a mad dash across rooftops in order to reach higher ground. After a condensed combat section, the player arrives at the last third, which is built around a tall spire with a sniper on top. The level increases in verticality as it continues. Due to being at the top of a city, the level is wide and open enough that you can see the end from the beginning. This incurred difficulties with hero balancing. Because some playable characters are more suited to platforming than others, the level's emphasis on climbing and movement speed could damper player experience. In some cases, due to not requiring the player fight any enemies and merely make it to the end of the section, the first section can be entire skipped over or have all of its combat negated. On the flipside, the spacing of enemies and the water making the player slower but floatier led to the last two sections being incredibly difficult for certain heroes.
Balancing the capabilities of 8 different playable characters, as well as the annoyance of losing movement control mid-combat due to being submerged in water, weren't taken into account when designing the level. For The World Stage, I instead created a closed interior environment. All level objectives required engaging with enemies, which were the only obstacles besides walls this time around. Both Paradise Perch and The World Stage made good use of cover and breather areas, which benefitted all playstyles.
Adding Level Gimmicks
Adding Level Gimmicks
While my main role was level designer and we had a dedicated programmer on our team, I was encouraged (and somewhat required) to do some scripting of my own to implement the new mechanics introduced in both levels.
Rising Flood
Rising Flood
A manager controls the level of the tide in Paradise Perch, including updating and resetting it, based on triggers that set the tide's vertical position via nodes. The tide itself is a simple cube object that detects when the player is fully inside of it and then sets player control settings to reflect being underwater.
Universal Teleporter System
Universal Teleporter System
To give the illusion of looping through the same room as it evolves in The World Stage, I created a dynamic but easy-to-use teleporter prefab that could be used anywhere in the game. It allows for one-way teleporters, locks, customizable exit position and togglable visibility.
New Enemy and Objective
New Enemy and Objective
One goal of mine was to add one new enemy and one new objective in The World Stage. The enemy remains stationary and can't fire at the player, but when hit with a weapon will go flying. If it collides with a wall, it bounces off in another direction. If the player runs into it, it explodes.
For the objective, I wanted to do a timed objective, initially being to survive enemy onslaught. But this didn't gel with gameplay. Instead, I went for a timed variation of the Kill All Enemies objective where you have a short timer that will kill you on expiring and each enemy adds a few seconds to the timer.
Level Design Documents
Level Design Documents
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