GAME DESIGNER - Technical & Level Designer
Role(s)
Level Design | Technical Design
Collaborators
None
Summary
A whitebox level made after receiving the prompt "You and your friends find yourself in a strange place. Things have been getting weirder." The general Idea for the level was that as the level went on, things would get weirder, with events happening or things/items that are out of place. The level was built with multiplayer in mind and as an introductory level to the game.
This also served as my first attempt at using Unreal.
The level starts of on a small islet, with the players having just escaped from a sinking boat, and things progress from there.
Want to give it a walk around? Download here: https://mnevill.itch.io/mnldweird
Download includes
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Level Executable + all the stuff generated when building a level using UE5.1
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Read me file containing controls + small explanation of debug texts
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A very basic Level Design document.
The demo is fully playable solo
I'm responsible for everything within the level itself, design and implementation wise
YEAR & LENGTH
2023 | ~1-1.5 Months
GENRE
Exploratory, Weirdness, Level Design Project, Coop
Engine
Unreal 5.1
Inspiration & Idea
I created this level after having received the prompt "You and your friends find yourself in a strange place. Things have been getting weirder."
Seeing as this was my first time using Unreal, I wanted to explore the systems and have a chance to see what could be done using its in-built systems and features, especially related to their Blueprints. Keeping this in mind though, I focused mostly on something that wouldn't require major edits to the character controller or include anything too complicated beyond a surface level.
I also wanted to see what could be done in terms of level events and interesting things happening, and the idea of a "Lost" type of situation seemed appealing, with the characters arriving on an island and having mysterious things happening before then being whisked away to some alternate dimension.
Because of the prompt as well, I elected to go for a multiplayer setting, and wanted to have the exploration be more cooperatively focused, deciding on having certain climbable areas and the items the players would have to collect theoretically require 2 people. Realistically, I didn't have any idea for how to get actual multiplayer working and figured that it would be outside of the scope of an introductory try out.
Taking all of this into account, I went for the idea of an opening/tutorial level where it was a more streamlined experience meant to get players used to what they might encounter and have to do throughout a game.
Level Design
For the overall Level Design, as stated before, I went for a more linear, introductory level idea, which would include some cooperative challenges to get the players into the co-op mindset/mood. I also wanted to have the air of mystery be created and built-up over the course of the level, introducing weirder and weirder events throughout before arriving at the big conclusion of going through the mysterious portal that appeared, that itself being one of the weirder events to happen.
I wanted the level to have a couple of defining moments to it that would really help set the tone of the theoretical game that would follow it, these 2 events being the teleporter spawning in, and the sequence at the end where the players arrive in a weird location with a collection of other teleporters, allowing the player to see that their journey had only just begun.
The design for the overall level for the players was to always end up going upwards. From the start of the level, the players start on the beach of the islet they arrived on, only to travel upwards to move past the beach. They then also travel upwards towards the portal before being dropped down into the cavern below, where the ultimate goal is to travel deeper down into the darkness in order to back track upwards towards the light. I wanted height and light to be important guides for the players.
Framing and unveiling was also something I wanted to keep in mind, in order to drive home the point of exploration, wonder and mystery.
LEVEL DESIGN: The Beginning and the Teleporter
The first part of the level, where the players spawn on the beach of the islet.
The players start next to the life boats, and proceed from there. I used height variation to immediately try and draw the players' attention to where they had to go, where they can then also get a better overview of the start area, as well as impress upon them that this place was incredibly small.
After entering into the ravine, the players then come out to a small wooded area, where the first event begins, spawning in the teleporter. I went for an unveiling here, blocking the players Line of Sight and forcing them to crouch through the exit and emerging into the area to get the feeling of exploration a bit, before then diving into the weird.
The area caps off with giving the players a false idea of what would be happening. Instead of going into the teleporter to leave the islet, on approach they're dropped into the cavern below. The idea was to give the players a want to come back to the teleporter, showing them that the teleporter wasn't the beginning, but instead the ending point of the level.
Time Advancement and Teleporter
The Drop into the Cavern
Underground part 1
After dropping down into the cavern, the teleporter stays above on top of a pillar, and the players have nowhere else to go but down further into the dark. The players are presented with holes in the pillar, implying some "keys" need to be slotted into it, and nowhere else to go but down into the dark.
After following the river down, they arrive at a lake with a massive door blocking their path. To the side of it, hidden away is a hole in the cave that allows them to move forward.
The area was originally going to have an enemy patrolling it, but I decided against having that as I felt that as an introduction level to the game, it might be a bit too early for that, especially seeing as I had other challenges in the level that required cooperation instead.
After moving through the hole in the cave, the player reaches a room that has no ceiling; instead your able to see the ocean above, and in the middle of this room across a cooperative jumping puzzle, the "keys" the players need to get out of the room and cavern.
The puzzle is a set of 3 rotating platforms, each rotating at a different speed. One player needs to slow the platforms down by using a control panel and allowing someone to jump across, before they then need to repeat it for the other player to then acquire the other "key".
After getting both keys, the players can then open the giant door in the room, allowing them to go back the way they came, though the path back has now changed a bit.
Underground, Exit & Ending
After coming back out through the door, the lake has been replaced with dark pit with floating rocks, and the roof above is now the same as the room you just left. The players then need to jump back across, and help each other climb up a ledge in order to make it back to the pillar.
Once reaching the pilar and activating the stairs, they can then leave through the teleporter.
They arrive in another dimension, filled with other teleporters, showing them other potential places for them to go and continue their adventure
Final Thoughts
Seeing as this was my first time using Unreal, I felt I did alright and I'm happy with how it all turned out. One thing I do regret doing however was having a back-to-back jumping challenge. Looking back on it, I feel like it really broke the pacing for the level and wasn't all that enjoyable to have. The journey back should've just been that, a journey back, or perhaps the introduction to an enemy like I had originally planned for earlier in the level.
I found that I really quite liked Unreal's Blueprint system, as well as some of the interesting level systems they had, like data layers. It's definitely something that I would love to touch on more in the future.