Level Design
A small collection of old personal projects.
PROJECT 001 || ICARUS
Icarus is a third person adventure game where the player takes possession of a bird character. The player journeys through the segmented islands to restore the winds, which brings balance back to the lands and enables the player to take advantage of full flight controls.
Level Design - [2020]
Credits
Game Design - Thomas Higham
Level Design
There are two key areas of gameplay for Icarus, the first being dungeons and the second being open world. Similar to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the dungeons in the game act as a self contained test for the player. Within the dungeons I take a core mechanic from the game and test the players by developing and twisting the mechanic in unique ways. These dungeons are much more structured and linear than the open world parts of the project. The open world sections are much more focused on exploration and traversal of the world using all available mechanics.
At the start of each island the player can only perch, swing and glide, however, once they have completed the main dungeon on the island they gain the ability to fully fly around the island. With the player being able to unlock full flight movement I encountered one of the biggest design challenges, trying to design spaces that work with full flight mechanics as well as the perching and swinging. The open world designs are continuously being iterated on to ensure that the space is the right size to be traversed in both flight and non-flight without becoming boring, empty spaces connecting key areas together.
PROJECT 002 || ALCHEMAIC
Alchemaic is a local co-op adventure game, developed over a 10 week period as part of the Tranzfuser 2017 competition.
"Adventure through mysterious worlds to reclaim the stolen energy. Fight, solve puzzles and explore to uncover the world's secrets. Tailor your play style with branching skill trees and customise your appearance. Faceoff against large-scale bosses in unique encounters that will test your skills."
Level Design - [2017]
Credits
Game Design - Thomas Higham
Prop & UI Art - Dean Pountain
Env & Tech Art - Daniel Stockford
Level Design & Blueprint
With Alchemaic we wanted to create a very cinematic feel to the gameplay to make the player's adventures seem like an "epic quest". Knowing this I took the base camera system I created for a group university project and started to tailor it to the projects needs (such as dedicated combat "mode" and to track up to 4 players at any time due to the drop in/out system).
As we decided the prototype would take place in a "Crystal Kingdom" I started gathering reference and sat down with the artists to discuss interesting spaces and storytelling opportunities. After that, I started creating spaces and testing out combat and puzzle ideas. Knowing that this prototype was going to be shown at EGX 2017 I focused a lot on the flow and pacing of the level. Trying to make sure players get a taste for each area of the game. I decided to stagger the combat and puzzles at the beginning and then drop the players into a new unique looking area to regain any lost attention. In this new area, players receive the levels main mechanic which for this was a crystal that could project and refract light. After two puzzles using this mechanic, I then had the ending sequence. I decided on having the cave start to collapse, this was tied into the boss fights we wanted at the end of every level. As the players run down avoiding rubble they eventually rest at the arena the boss battle would take place, before a final cinematic reveal of the boss.
PROJECT 003 || BLOCKTOBER
This project was created over 1 week and is set in an abandoned factory which has the players navigating through the derelict building. This level was inspired by the prompt “Overgrown Ruins”.
Level Design
With the goal of creating a blockout within a week I quickly gathered reference and started creating some topdowns. With no game mechanics to build the level around I focused more on building out an explorable space and the overall flow through the level.
