Unity Metroidvania - WIP
This is currently a work-in-progress design, but I am working on crafting a metroidvania style of game in Unity. These are some early screenshots showing various stages of the design from the early prototyping of certain skills, pickups, and destructible, to level areas and the first boss arena. More updates on the way!
Small Dungeon Level
While browsing the assets section on Itch.io I stumbled upon this interesting looking pack and I had a lightbulb that I had to toss together a short dungeon level. I thought the asset packed looked great and had a lot of fun just putting together this set piece. Some of the sections of the dungeon have piles of boxes, or bookshelves that can be searched for possible loot as well as information about the mine turned dungeon itself. The screenshots below show some before and after shots as I had worked on this over a few weeks time and wanted to show the progress made in bits and pieces. Progress was a little slow on this between work and family life, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out overall and look forward to finding other assets from KayKit.
Asset pack: KayKit - Dungeon Remastered Pack - Itch.io
Asset pack: KayKit - Dungeon Remastered Pack - Itch.io
Dungeon Level
Though no longer working on this project, I did create a dungeon level for a small indie company on an unannounced game. The level had a focus on exploring the decrepit dungeon. I wanted to focus on showing the age and feeling of ruins with collapsed walls, broken or knocked over furniture, and an overall emptiness that conveyed a place long abandoned.
I worked for Razor Edge Games, starting out as a level designer and eventually moved on to assist the lead of the Marketing team and Writing team. As one of the level designers I created a handful of levels set within warehouse and factory spaces. These set pieces ranged from large open spaced warehouses rundown after the ravages of time and looters, to the cramped factories full of broken machines, and loot filled piles of scrap. Razor Edge has undergone many changes while I was there and since I have left, so most of the work is no longer published and was requested to be removed. The pictures above show a few scenes that I did work on and were still able to be shared. Two barren, empty landscapes and snapshot of a workshop I created that was selected for a Marketing promotion, before I joined the Marketing team, showcasing locations for a band audition promotion Razor Edge was running at that time. As a level designer we were in charge of creating 1-2 levels per month and while creating those levels were required to maintain a highly detailed and sorted asset list as most-all of the assets being used were still being created, were not textured, and without materials.
I also worked with the writing team to create various story quests and background lore for specific town facility locations. These quests would range from telling stories of the location itself, to generic gather or exterminate quests. The facility location lore was a bit more intricate. We created stories for each of the towns facilities giving background or just bringing those facilities to life. Everything from an attack and final stand of Radio Station delta V, to mechanic needing to venture out into a bandit filled warehouse to get the booster part needed for a client. These stories brought life to the town and connected the player to these locations.
I also worked with the writing team to create various story quests and background lore for specific town facility locations. These quests would range from telling stories of the location itself, to generic gather or exterminate quests. The facility location lore was a bit more intricate. We created stories for each of the towns facilities giving background or just bringing those facilities to life. Everything from an attack and final stand of Radio Station delta V, to mechanic needing to venture out into a bandit filled warehouse to get the booster part needed for a client. These stories brought life to the town and connected the player to these locations.
While level design is my passion, during my time at Razor Edge Games the team and studio was growing and changing all the time. A call went out for help with another team and as this was one of my first time working with a studio of any sorts, I jumped at chance to broaden my knowledge and skill set. While I had no experience with real experience in marketing, I had the opportunity to assist the Marketing team in maintaining the website, adding/removing features and content creation for the site, and handling most of the social media outlets, and presence that Razor Edge had. I was working with the Marketing lead in creating ads, social media posts and content for the site to draw in more views, visitors and drumming up excitement for the upcoming game.
Leadwerks is an engine similar to Unreal but focused on community through Steam. In 2015 they held a summer jam contest and we created Beach Roll! A Marble Madness style of game focused on the beach! My team consisted of two people, myself and a fellow graduate John Brazzell. John was in charge of programming while I handled all the level design and layout. You can see the levels I created in the gallery below!
Bunker is a short level designed following a class assignment for destructible environment. Starting from the interior of the bunker you make your way into a catwalk room. Taking the stairs up you run into a boarded up room. You can shoot through the boards to enter into a storage type room and then follow the hallway to make it out of the bunker! This level featured the destructible boards and the lights also can be shot to be turned off.
This was all made while I was still in game design school, but here is a short video highlighting the level. https://vimeo.com/58595885
Video password is LeoUDK
This was all made while I was still in game design school, but here is a short video highlighting the level. https://vimeo.com/58595885
Video password is LeoUDK
Next up, The Castle. The Castle was a group project at school. Our group was charged with creating a level based around a castle and castle village. I helped design the outside which is the banner picture at the top of this site and the first picture. Along with the front design I designed the underground catacomb areas. The flames flickered and gave off a crackling sound. Water could be heard running from the pipe/drain in the middle of the room in the last screen shot. Light also shown in from that drain as well, prisoners freedom was so close in reach, but just outside of their grasp.
Last up in the UDK showcase is the Temple in the Mountains. Temple in the Mountains was another class project. We had a video that laid out the initial main temple structure, but the surrounding decor and layout was all up to me. This level featured rain and wind affects. In the middle row of screen shots there can be seen water, if the player jumped into the water and submerged themselves the camera went blurry and changed to a blueish tint.