Level Design
Level Design
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My experience & approach
I've done some level design work at SUPERHOT Team but most of my expertise comes from working on Harpagun.
I've been part of the level design process from ideation of our levels to the final polish. I've created design boards that guided our level designers according to good practices for our game and its mechanics. I've done multiple concepts and blockout prototypes.
For the whole process I've been the guiding voice, leading the development of our levels and when needed, especially in the polish period, I have worked on the levels myself.
In challenging situations during development I was responsible for level redesigns that needed to solve our problems quickly and cleverly but without losing the character and story coherence - these are described below.
All of the levels in Harpagun were a collective effort where every designer had time working on each of the levels.
Mycelium Level Redesign & Blockout
Problems: Open spaces, multiple massive objects, necessity to create level unique models.
Redesign included tighter spaces, a lot of turns and obstructions to cover unnecessary objects during gameplay. The level kept it's structure of climbing towards a goal with a Mega Building Vista at the start and at the end of the level. Along with this new pathway I added some secondary story context with makeshift housing.
For the second issue–unique models and textures needed for our mycelian goo growth–I found a solution that reused one model and texture, all it required was to temporarily use models with bones which helped with blocking it out and level design iteration. These were later baked and used much less resources.
Glasshouse Level Redesign & Blockout
Problems: Open spaces, hard to optimize, too many different contexts/unclear theme.
First thing I had to do was cutting. I've narrowed down location themes to two. A simple glasshouse, ridding it of unnecessary interior constructions which were a nightmare to optimize, filling it instead with plant pots that could be a perfect context to place our enemies. Second–industrial machinery, huge harvesters and old cars. These were assets we already had and reinforced our story themes and allowed for fun gameplay interaction (opening doors and flaps).
On top of that I added a gameplay theme, reviving our grenade enemy, placing him all over the glasshouses, creating a unique gameplay area that was dangerous but fun.
Suburbs Level Redesign
Problems: Too straightforward of a path, lack of verticality, lack of time for new asset production, risk of monotone gameplay throughout the game.
This mistake I was actually responsible for, as the initial design was mine. The straight path was supposed to be a refreshment from other level layouts but proved to be boring in gameplay. After hearing out the team we changed the car layout to create more diversity.
Parts of going through destroyed building were removed to save cost in production.
To combat monotone gameplay progress I came up with the idea to introduce few levels with unique combat situations. A combat arena was added to all 3 levels described on this page, it was a type of arena I prototyped as an additional mode for the game. This changed provided new type of gameplay in the campaign, diversifying its flow and providing more challenge from at the right moments of the story.
Level Design
Level Design
SUPERHOT: MCD, SUPERHOT: VR
This is where I learned the ropes. I've created secret areas within the levels for SUPERHOT: MCD, polished few levels and managed the development of an additional one for SUPERHOT: VR and designed all of the levels in a small demake game PicoHot.
Tilted Dungeon
A game jam project where I was responsible for design of gameplay, mechanics and level design.
With a limited amount of mechanics I've managed to create 5 levels with possibility for much more. Our simple elements could be combined in a multitude of ways to create unique gameplay for each level.
Our mechanics included:
Physical obstacles
Bouncers
Arrow traps
Spikes
Ledges (clever removing of walls)
Narrow bridges
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