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SlumsRunner - FPS Platformer

Level Designer - Scripter

INTRODUCTION

SlumsRunner is a First Person Platformer with a strong emphasis on speed and fast reaction time. The player is constantly tested on his mechanical skills by the level design.

I was in charge of the entire Level Design and some of the Scripting for this project.

PROJECT DETAILS

  • Developed over 6 weeks

  • Team of 4 people

  • Unreal Engine 5

  • Level Design

  • Set Dressing

  • Scripting

  • Assets used : Soul: City (Epic Games)

PRE-PRODUCTION

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DESIGN ON PAPER

My goal for the tutorial level was to make sure the player would understand all the basic mechanics of the game in a seamless and instinctive way.

I first gathered references images of real life "slums" to guide the way I would design my level and I then drew my ideas on paper. Once I was happy with the result I moved into Unreal Engine where I began my Blockout process.

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STAYING ON TRACK

During this project we used Taiga to stay organized, we created "sprints" to give us a set of goals to achieve each weeks which greatly improved our productivity and allowed us to always stay on track with our initial ideas.

I really enjoyed the way it allowed me to share my progress with my team in a very clean and easily readable way.

 

BLOCKOUT PHASE

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BLOCKOUT

We only had 2 weeks to deliver a full prototype of the core game mechanics. As a Level Designer it was mandatory for me to put together a well made Blockout that would allow us to playtest all the mechanics as well as giving a good idea of what the flow will feel like later on so we could iterate on it.

AFFORDANCE

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GUIDANCE

One of the most important aspect of a great platformer/parkour game is Affordance, you don't want the player to stop to look around and figure out where to go as this would completely break the flow and enjoyment of the game. To properly guide the player I used leading lines as well as bright colors to effortlessly let them know where to Jump, Slide and Wall Run.

TUTORIAL LEVEL FLOWCHART

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LEVEL FLOW

It was crucial for me that the tutorial level was impeccable and immersive. Since it's the first level the player will play and learn all the basic mechanics on, it will most likely influence how the rest of his game experience will be.

I also wanted to not overwhelm the player with too much information at once and to do so I made sure to introduce each mechanics one by one while making sure to implement them multiples times to really make sure the player have a good grasp of them.

SIMULATION LEVELS

WITH PROBLEMS COMES SOLUTIONS

It quickly became obvious that making multiple large highly detailed levels by myself in 6 weeks wasn't realistic. My team and I then decided to go with Simulation Levels that the player would enter after the tutorial. This allowed me to rapidly create fun and challenging experiences without having to spend hours set-dressing which I believe was definitely the best solution for our problem.

GAMEPLAY AND CLOSING THOUGHTS

This was by far one of my most challenging project yet, creating a level that would be both immersive while always keeping the gameplay as a priority in mind was arduous but definitely thought me a lot of new techniques.

If I had to do this project again I would undeniably do it differently using all the new techniques I learned throughout this project like merging actors togethers for efficiency and optimization or even playtesting earlier in the development to avoid backtracking later on. All in all I'm extremely pleased with the result of SlumsRunner.

Thank you for reading.

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