Level/Game Design

My work as an Environment/Level Designer started out with creating an environment from scratch to train and test search and rescue professionals (Named SAR Mountain). This meant a realistic environment with a variety of foliage, rock formations, caves, campsites, and other points of interest for potential lost subjects to be located at. Throughout the development, I had done a large amount of research on what this scenario needed by interviewing SAR professionals, researching watershed patterns, and reading industry-standard training on SAR techniques.

I started the process by teaching myself GAIA, a very powerful 3rd party procedural terrain and environment generation tool, to create a rough but natural layout. From here was a lot of hand painting terrain to bring up the large central mountain, making sure there were plenty of spaces for mountain pathways, lakes, and riverbeds.

Next, I taught myself how to use River Auto Material (R.A.M.), another great 3rd party tool for quickly creating rivers, lakes, ponds, trails, roads, and more for my scene. This meant using an overhead screenshot of my scene to start making layouts for the watershed of this environment. After showcasing this to my peers, I mapped out the trails and whiteboxed the various POI's and went through multiple iterations of paths and rivers before sticking with the layout we have now.

I then used various rock models and prefabs to create the variety of rock outcroppings, caves, and natural structures found throughout the scenario. I remember a specific bit of feedback I was given from our CEO, Kyle, was to "go ham" with the rocks, which lead me to add as many new rock groups as I could in a week. Going as overboard as I could, we ended up with a large majority of these rocks being kept for the final product.

After implementing models, hand painting texture refinements, and lots of iterations, the environment was done. And now it was on to designing the training modules within it. With feedback from coworkers and industry professionals, I created a plan for 27 unique modules training individuals in tracking and finding lost adults, children, ATV riders, criminals, and more. I then started work on the first 8 modules on lost hikers, climbers, and campers with a plan to show these off at CUAV 2025 (one of the largest drone shows of the year).

Feedback on the modules was great, with lots of excited customers, but also with very insightful feedback on what to add in new modules and what to clarify in instructions and documentation. After this, due to working as a Producer, Environment designer, and managing a full college workload, in order to hit our EOY release target, I facilitated the transition of the development of the final modules to one of our other level designer's nicknamed Moose. Who has done an amazing job creating the final modules from my plan, while I took over his work on new modules for our recently released "SAR Fundamentals" scenario.

COG: The Cycle of Growth starts you out with only a few seconds of battery life before your player flops over and dies. Then, if you collected coins in your brief first run, you are able to buy a battery upgrade, allowing you to survive just a bit longer. With this new time, you can collect slightly more coins, which allows you to purchase a speed upgrade so you can do more with your time. This gameplay loop (or cycle) creates really satisfying progression for the player, as with each run, they can get a bit further in the level and progress more and more every time. The level design makes or breaks a game like this, so I knew if I wanted this game to be fun, this would have to be some of the best work I'd ever done.

My level design had to be incredibly intentional and required a lot of trial and error. Every jump, ledge, saw, coin, and enemy had to be perfectly placed to coerce the player into buying certain upgrades to progress further. For example, there are zig-zagging platforms fairly early on in the level that are placed at exact distances and heights to force the player to buy additional jump and agility upgrades before they can progress further. I actually have a notebook where I wrote down the "optimal" upgrades to purchase after each run and exactly how many cogs/currency the player should have.

Of course, no player that I've seen play has ever taken this path, and that's where the beauty of COG really shines. Every time someone starts a new run, they have a different experience; they buy slightly different upgrades, prioritize different paths or strategies, and have the opportunity to improve their time. This variability also allows for players of nearly all skill levels to have fun and beat COG. If you are someone who is really good at 2D platformers, you might skip buying additional health or armor, but if you are new to the genre, you are much more likely to spend a few cogs on health so each attempt doesn't need to be perfect.

This made it so I was able to see my friends, family, and random people who played the game at Game Mason have lot's of fun with COG. Seeing so much positive feedback and people sitting down and spending 15-20 minutes of their time playing through the whole game at Game Mason was one of the most rewarding experiences of my career so far.  

As you can see in the screenshots I included, like a lot of Game Jam ideas, this one started with a whiteboard and a lot of excitement. Although my process is usually a lot more detailed, when you have less than 72 hours to go from nothing to something, I tend to dwindle it down to the basics.

1) Whiteboard/napkin sketch

2) In-Engine implementation with programmer art

3) In-Engine implementation with functionality

4) Final implementation with full art and functionality

You can see the 1st, 2nd, and 4th step in my screenshots to the right and watch level 4 of Graviplex go from incoherent rambling to unique puzzle design.

I had a lot of fun on this project, designing the levels and mechanics. With a mending bending feature like this (designed for the "mixed signals" theme of this game jam), it required outside-the-box puzzle designs and as much testing and iteration as we could cram into the short time period. Overall, I had a lot of fun designing the levels on this game and encourage you to go to its project page to watch the walkthrough or better yet, play it yourself!