elysian inferno
This was an expansive project where I and a small team made a full hour long game over the span of about 20 weeks. I was responsible for the level design, environment art, some technical art, and overall management of the game world in-engine.
programs used:
Environment Art
modular kit
Each piece remains the same dimensions but reflects from a roman to a gothic style.
foliage
Kept subtle for background/supporting details. Underworld trees made by a teammate.
level design
Map overview
The full view of the overworld map after the art pass.
I was responsible for the level design, greybox, and majority of the setdressing - though my teammates helped with certain rooms during crunch time!
The two Worlds
Our tech lead set up the system to be simultaneously controlling two players with mirrored movements, and built a tool to automatically flip and switch out mesh and materials from the top world to the bottom based on a data table I filled out.
vertical design
I also played a lot with verticality in this design. After the player falls into the soul cave hub, the exiting path leads down. This is to help the feeling of willingly going on a quest to find a piece of their soul, instead of a need to climb out of the cavern. Rest spots are flat, and areas of increasing difficulty are also usually narrower or include an upwards climb.
Greybox to Final
An overview of the tutorial area in greybox state to final art pass.
phase 1 path
The first phase of the game, the player is newly dead and is fighting to regain their abilities and reclaim their soul. I designed this level to go from right to left, as I wanted the player to feel a bit uncomfortable and out of place, and more like they are pushing against the world to go find something, rather than just following the flow.
phase 2 path
After the player retrieves their soul and has unlocked the last of their abilities, a condensed version of the level plays out from left to right as the forge collapses, giving the player a feeling of power and going with the flow.
Going right, along with some newly spawned blockades of rubble, also help the player navigate during the high stress event.
Technical Art
The soul gate has multiple modes, inactive/active, and open/closed, both drivable in real time through a single value.
Original Concept and material graph
BP_Barbiehouse
This tool was made by both me and the Tech Lead to occlude meshes that would be in the way once a zone is entered.
We started out with just an array that I would manually add mesh to, but every time the worlds were duplicated the mesh would be wiped from the array
I added a volume that detects all valid static mesh inside it and adds it to the array with one button click. This made a sometimes hour long task of re-populating all the BarbieHouses take just about a minute.
Reactive grass
Grass sways out of the way of objects, including the player and their spells.
