Team Size: 6
Project Duration: 4 months (part time)
Role: Level Designer
The crash was developed for Uppsala University in preparation for one of their upcoming courses. In the game the goal of the player is to collect enough resources to repair their ship and fly away.
I was the level Designer for this project and my responsibility was to design a valley on an alien planet. The valley should contain a variety of alien-plants and creatures with different interactions. My goal was to guide the player through the important landmarks of the game while creating interesting level compositions.
Design Work
In the crash my main goal was to create a valley that encourages and rewards exploration while clearly guiding the players towards the main goal.
First I created a blockout of the ship, using a customizable grid material to better measure scale and
location. I used different colors to better communicate interactable elements inside the ship. Potential enviromental storytelling components were also blocked and presented to the development team.
After completing the ship I moved on to the alien valley. I first started by creating a paper-prototype of the valley and presented it to the development team. following the feedback I made adjustments and started creating the level inside the engine. Early on there was focus on creating clear bounds for the player and highlighting gameplay elements to test the game's mechanics.
The level blockout went through many iterations with constant communication between me and the art team. I wanted the tower with the giant egg to draw the player's attention as they exit the ship, as that was the conclusion of the level. To make it draw more attention I surrounded the top of the pillar with giant emissive crystals. This drew players attention not only because of the glow emitting from the crystal but also because of the spiked shape that comes with the crystal. The same crystals were used as a navigation tool throughout the level. The crystals weren't the only navigation tool, but the water, rock formations and the placement of plants and creatures were used to lead the player towards either main path or a side path.
To the right I also show what the level looked like at the end of development. Given more time I would have liked to work more with the art team and add more contrast between intractable and non-interactable elements inside the level. In this project I was happy with my use of affordance and landmarks inside the level to guide the player.
 |
|---|
 |
 |
 |
 |