Chronosynthesis
Role
Level designer, set dressing, blocking (level 3), Voice actor (Babel) and 3D Modeler
Date
May 2024 - August 2024
Tools used
Unreal engine 5
Autodesk Maya
Substance painter
Reaper
Synopsis
Humans, greedy and selfish, ruined the earth both its beauty and resources. The remnants fled in space, but three brilliant scientists pulled all they could to send robots back to earth to find specific items to save humanity. The ship carrying the robots crashed, but two robots miraculously survived; a gardener robot and chemist robot, both are humanity's last hope. Solve puzzles to save the planet!
Development as a Level designer
This was my biggest project, in terms of team size (~20 people) it was also my first time designing anything with coop in mind, I knew it would have been challenge before it even started. My level was the first part of act 2; The botanical gardens, it is based on a real place in Montreal near the Olympic stadium Le jardin botanique
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My level had these standards to meet:
1 - introducing two new mechanics; the bouncing mushroom and the decomposition liquid (from now on referred to as mushroom and decomp liquid respectively)
2 - to follow our team's general level design philosophy briefly summarized as; not overly complicated, not too long (10-15 minutes max) and fun
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Video of my level
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So in brief this is the level; the players, once spawned, follow the path laid out in front of them until they encounter a mushroom, a cutscene starts and the players meet their first obstacle (albeit a simple one) once successfully passed they gain the ability to use the mushroom. Next, they climb a pile of stones using their starting abilities, once on top they need to jump over gaps using their new ability (mushrooms). in the next area immediately after they unlock the decomp liquid, this allows them to remove any plants blocking their way. They continue until they reach the last part of the level; opening an electric gate via lever, for that they'll need to use their new abilities and apply their knowledge of said abilities to pass, once that is done, they can reach the next level.
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Now I will explain my reasoning behind my designs and how they respect the standards put in place. The first challenge the players face after unlocking the mushroom is jumping across rocks with said mushrooms, its simplicity drives a clear and easy sense of their use if their introduction wasn't clear enough, also if they fail one jump it isn't the end of the world because I made it so they can just use their platform plant ability to reach the rocks if they fail, making it consequence free and provides experience and knowledge on how mushrooms work regardless if they succeeded or failed, making this mechanic not overly hard. The same can be said of the decomp liquid, once unlocked they can't progress unless they use it, in order to progress they need to use it on the plants blocking their way, making its purpose clear and also the same plant model is used throughout the level, this is to create an association with the plant in question and the decomp liquid. For the final challenge the players must open the gate via a lever, I chose this because its concept is almost is seen in almost every game with puzzles and it combines both new mechanics in a more challenging way, although not too challenging, so to not make it too long or complicated and definitively not a head scratcher.
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Set dressing and environmental design
This game takes place one hundred years or so, vacated of humans, so I wanted to give my level the feeling of nature taking back its domain will only a few remnants of humanity left. My landscape had exaggerated hills and bumps, with jagged spikes of rock sticking out of the ground, trees covering the place, wooden posts broken and unkept. Even though my level is already supposed to be a place where, in real life, nature is showcased and preserved I still went a bit wild with it, it is also important to point out that I wanted to show consistency with other levels so that mine, it terms of looks, wouldn't be out of place. for a better understanding of what I mean, I HIGHLY recommend looking at Owen Bowie's level because both of our levels (at least half of his) takes place outside.
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Now there is a lot of things that I would have done differently, reflecting back on my level. I would have made it shorter in terms of size, my problem, I think, was that I focused a lot of on the level looked with set dressing and landscaping that I inevitably made it larger. I would fix the VFX that appear on the playthrough, where the players unlock the decomp liquid, it worked in editor but not in build. I made it so in my level the camera would change its rotation depending where the players were and this led to some area being blocked from view because the camera would be pointing/inside certain places it shouldn't, I should've been more careful with that.
The people I've worked with
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Project Managers
Programmers
Santiago Franco
Viliyan Koychev​​​
Level designers
Owen Bowie
Alysia Madore
Santiago Franco
Game designers
Owen Bowie​
3D modelers
Narrative designers
Texture artists
Jingyan Deng​​
Sound designer
Voice actor
Animators
Character designers
Concept artists
Environmental artists
Cinematics
Owen Bowie
UI artists
VFX artist
Santiago Franco
Rigging
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First part of the level
Following the path, the players will trigger a cutscene zooming on a mushroom in front of a gap and the camera jumping over that gap, figuring out the jumping mushrooms gives the chemist the ability to now plant mushrooms.
Directions with simple details
The post on the image below, is one of many that the players can find all over the level, pointing exactly where to go. The game is not suppose to be challenging or too much of a head scratcher.
Piecing all the mechanics
Now with the mushrooms and and decomposition liquid, players can figure out what to do, jumping across the gaps to reach the lever that is connected to the gate (image below)
The Olympic stadium
This level is a real place, an exaggeration but still a real place, it's close to the stadium, so I wanted to give this view as an easter egg
Environmental design
My level is based on the native section of the garden, I took pictures of what I saw and modeled them, trying to fit the game esthetics, even the Conecrabs love the the carved rocks!
The Sights
I'm really happy with the results of my landscape, even though it is not part of the level, it is still there for players to gawk at. I wanted to give the impression that nature, in the absence of humanity, just took back control over the land, hopefully what I made translates that well
A meme at this point
Now, for some reason, everyone's version have ZERO issues with the water material....but me, it even became a gag during development. It's funny even after all attempts to fix it on my end it failed, forever cursed to be colorless.
The fixes that never came
As I mentioned in the dev process, this is one of the trees that in the playthrough block the view for the players, however, it was something I fixed that just didn't get pushed properly, still it is something I should've easily sniffed out, despite hours of playtesting. it's a good lesson to be more mindful of these things.
