Unreal Engine Level Design

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A gameplay walkthrough of Scenarios 2 and 3, demonstrating puzzle scripting, level flow, and environmental storytelling within an 'Abandoned Industrial' setting for my first assessment.

A gameplay walkthrough of Assessment 2, demonstrating the custom flashlight system, physics puzzles, and atmospheric horror design set in an abandoned lab.

Overview

This page highlights my work for the 'Game Creation' module at Teesside University (Year 1, 2024 - 2025). The assessments were designed to balance design, technical achievement, and presentation.

For the first assessment, I created two levels based on an 'Abandoned Industrial' theme, serving as my introduction to Unreal Engine 5. The second assessment provided total creative freedom, allowing me to develop a first-person horror experience set in an abandoned lab. While my primary focus was Level Design, I also explored visual scripting with Blueprints, and 3D asset creation in Maya. The floor plan for the first level was provided by the course.

Key Features

Assessment 1 - Level Design (Abandoned Industrial)

This assessment was primarily focused on level design and creating interesting puzzles/doors for the player to traverse within a 'Abandoned Industrial' theme.

Physics & Destruction: Implemented destructible windows using the Fracture Mode, applying a dynamic force to push the shards outwards upon interaction.

$Unreal Engine 5 viewport displaying a level design blockout for an industrial warehouse environment. Large red, blue, and yellow geometry blocks represent crates and obstacles in a dimly lit room. In the background, a destructible window actor is highlighted with a blue outline, showcasing pre-fractured glass geometry prepared for a physics-based destruction event.$

Logic Puzzles & Gating: Engineered various progression blockers to guide the player: destructible windows, "Flip-Flop" logic gates controlling dual doors, and specific gates locked by keys, buttons or specific collectable notes. I also created a crane puzzle where a car blocking the path is moved via a button press. All animations were driven by Timelines for smooth movement.

Unreal Engine 5 viewport showing a gameplay puzzle setup involving a large yellow tower crane. The crane is positioned over a greybox level area and is lifting a red car, which serves as a physics-based dynamic obstacle. The scene includes red wireframe debug spheres indicating interaction zones for the player.

Unreal Engine 5 viewport displaying a wide-angle view of a level design blockout. The brightly lit room features large red, yellow, and blue geometry blocks arranged to create traversal paths, interspersed with stacks of wooden crates. Technical debug elements are visible, including light source icons and wireframe outlines for interactive objects like a destructible window and a trigger volume.

Cinematics & Camera Control: Implemented a cutscene which would play when the player pressed a button, fixing the camera to a specific point to highlight a toll bar opening in the distance.

Unreal Engine 5 viewport showing a first-person perspective from a control room desk. A low-poly computer terminal in the foreground serves as an interactive button. Through the window, the player overlooks a gated checkpoint puzzle featuring a red car, bollards, and a toll barrier. Red wireframe debug lines highlight the trigger volume for the cinematic cutscene that activates when the terminal is used.

UI: Created a HUD that dynamically updated to display player health, current objectives, and inspected items.
Health & Damage: Created spike actors which on contact would slowly drain the player's health, if this reached zero the level would restart.
Level Design: Levels were quickly blocked out via the CubeGrid tool, allowing more time to focus on technical implementation.
Character Controller: Using the standard Third-Person Character as a reference, I recreated the controller from scratch to ensure I understood the core movement logic.
Asset Pipeline: Modelled numerous 3D assets in Maya (crates, pylons, garage doors, fences/gates), created multiple textures (brick wall, dirty tarmac floor, and an unused grass texture) in Adobe Substance 3D Sampler, and implemented sound cues for interactions to flesh out the environment.

Assessment 2 - Level Design (Abandoned Lab) & Planning

For the second assessment, I developed a first-person horror game. This project pushed both my level design and technical skills further.

Advanced Material Management: Visualised the torch's battery life directly on the model. This involved using a Dynamic Material Instance to transition the texture from yello to black as the battery variable depleted.
Physics Puzzles: Designed physics-based puzzles involving pushing crates to reach elevated points of interest, such as air ducts.
Enemy NPCs & Hazards: Implemented an enemy AI using Unreal's NavMesh System; if the player enters the enemy's field of view, it begins chasing. Contact deals progressive damage, but defeating an enemy drops a life-syringe. I also created electrified water hazards that deal rapid damage on contact.
- Combat: The player can deal damage to enemies in close-range via pressing 'R'.
- Health & UI: Created a HUD health bar to communicate player status. Reaching zero health triggers a level restart. Health is restored by collecting life-syringes dropped by enemies or found in the level.
Level Design: Developed an intuitive layout to optimize the player experience. I used lighting and environmental geometry to narrow choices, guiding the player to objectives, and foreshadowed future hazards (electrified water, life-syringes, puzzles & hostile presences) early in safety to teach mechanics without frustration.
Modified Character (from the previous assessment): Adapted the character from the previous assessment, modifying the logic to support crouching (shrinking the hitbox & slowing movement speed).
- Tools: Implemented a toggleable flashlight (F) to illuminate dark areas. The battery life is limited but passively regenerates when deactivated, creating a resource-management mechanic.
Modular Environment Design: Created a suite of modular assets in Maya intended for reuse, such as: doors, padded walls, desks, torch, batteries, syringes, and air ducts. Crates were reused from the previous assessment. A glossy glass texture was also created and the grass texture was retrieved from the first assessment - previously unused.

Initial Level Layouts

A top-down 2D level design map titled 'Level One - Tutorial'. The layout displays a starting room connected to a larger hall via a corridor containing obstacles. Annotations identify key gameplay mechanics and progression items, including 'electrified water' hazards, a 'keycard' location, a 'flickering flashlight', and locked doors, visualizing the intended player flow and puzzle structure.

A top-down 2D level design layout detailing a complex lab environment. The map features multiple interconnected zones, including a 'Cafeteria', 'Start Room', and 'Enclosed Outside' area. Annotations highlight specific gameplay events such as 'Enemy roaming', physics puzzles like 'Push box to vent', and platforming challenges over 'Electrified water', demonstrating the planned pacing and spatial flow of the level.

Level Two & Three

Technical Breakdown

Language: Blueprint Visual Scripting
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Core Systems: Gameplay Framework (Character Controller), UMG (UI), Chaos Physics (Destruction), AI Navigation (NavMesh)
Core Concepts: Blueprint Interfaces, Event-Driven Logic, Dynamic Materials, Timelines
Tools: Autodesk Maya, Adobe Substance 3D Painter, Trello, GitHub, Audacity

Challenges & Lessons Learned

As my first deep dive into Unreal Engine 5, this project provided a comprehensive understanding of the engine's core systems, from Blueprints to physics interactions.

Implementing Chaos Destruction: Configuring the Geometry Collections for the glass required significant iteration. I faced challenges finding the right fracture method and applying the correct physics impulse to ensure pieces were pushed outward realistically rather than crumbling in place.
Scope Management: My initial design document included a large outdoor "Canyon" level alongside the laboratory. However, as development progressed, I realised the scope was too ambitious for the timeframe. Using Trello to track my tasks, I made the production decision to cut the Canyon level. This allowed me to dedicate my time to polishing the core mechanics (battery system, AI, puzzles) in "The Lab," teaching me the importance of prioritizing quality over quantity.

Grade

Assessment 1 Grade: 89.1%

View the First Assessment's Code on GitHub

View the Second Assessment's Code on GitHub

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