aTTRITION

Role: Level Designer | Project Type: Personal Team | Duration: 3 Weeks | Tools: Unity 6 | Created: Winter Break 2024

Overview

Project Introduction

Attrition is a collaborative passion project developed over Winter Break alongside a team of 8 other Game Designers. Our goal was to prototype an Isometric Dungeon-Crawler, where the environment changed depending on the player’s actions in a previous life. I worked as a level designer on this project, helping shape the rooms' design for the game.

My Contributions

  • Built 4 dungeon rooms using Unity’s Probuider tool.

    • Collaborated with the other level designer to determine the aesthetic of each room & how they would connect.

    • Used consistent metrics to match art assets & implemented finished art into each room I authored.

  • Built a gym level, determining the spatial arrangement & metrics of future levels.

    • Worked alongside other game designers to create consistent camera rules for combat & exploration.

    • Created the gym level within the first few days of the project, for use by the AI designer to create & test enemies in.

    • Used this level to give the rest of the team an overall idea of how the dungeons would look.

Sprint 1: Planning

Determining Camera Rules

The other level designer and I collaborated to establish a set of rules for camera positioning in the level. The goal was to ensure readability and consistency, so the player doesn’t have to think about the camera; it just feels natural.

In Exploration & Narrative Spaces

  • The camera is freeform; we can adjust the camera’s position and rotation as seen fit for any cinematic shots, or areas of narrative importance we want the player to focus on

    • However, this needs to be continually playtested to ensure the camera changes aren’t jarring

In Combat Spaces

  • The camera’s X rotation should always be 45 degrees, but the Y rotation can be adjusted.

  • Camera height should be consistent across all rooms at 10 Unity units high.

Creating the Gym Level

Inspiration & Aesthetic

  • A motto we had for the dungeons was “Big indoor, vast spaces”. We wanted the player to feel small, to reiterate that feeling of despair.

  • When figuring out what the dungeons would look like, we drew inspiration from the Forerunner architecture from Halo.

    • We wanted to create an ancient yet futuristic look by integrating sharp and angular geometry. We wanted this place to feel “otherworldly”

    • Another rule we gave ourselves for the architecture was to create contrasting shapes within the environment, ie. Circles vs. Edges.

      • Our aim was to create clarity in the environment while reinforcing that otherworldly theme.

Sprints 2-3: Development

Building Rooms for Modularity

Team Process

Retrospective

What Went Well

What Needs Improvement

What I’ve Learned