Quest Designer & Level Designer
Dead In Light
Unity | 6 Developers | 3 months
Summary
Dead In Light is a 2D puzzle side-scroller made for Android tablets in which the player controls a vampire who uses abilities, such as turning humans into controllable thralls and lightning-fast dashes, to avoid environmental hazards and reach the end of each level.
Genre: 2D platformer puzzle
Engine: Unity
Platform: Android
Team Size: 6 Developers (2 Level Designers)
Development Time: 8 weeks
Design Thought
Responsibilities
GAME DESIGN
-
Brainstormed gameplay mechanics like player and minion abilities
-
Designed UX and game UI flow
LEVEL DESIGN
-
Designed the 2D layout & puzzles on paper
-
Blocked out the level using placeholders in Unity
AESTHETIC DESIGN
-
Found the proper music and SFX sources
-
Found art reference and collabrated with artist
Level Design Process
Paper Design
I like to start designing each level on paper first, using digital tools like remarkable to do some sketches. Based on the gameplay mechanics, I begin to brainstorm and list some interesting puzzle ideas.
For example, in Dead in Light, the main mechanic is letting the vampire bite someone to be his minion and control him to do things to let the vampire himself pass. And the weakness of the vampire is light. So a good 'Catch' (logic contradiction) is to use light block the way of the vampire and support all kinds of tools for the minions to fix the issue for him.
​
Here I have 3 potential ideas and all applied to the final levels: Let the minion pass the light and turn the light off; Use a minion to raise another minion to reach some place higher; Use the weight of the minion to weighed down one side of a scale to block the light.
Levels and Design Thoughts
Total level amounts: 4
Level 1: Vampire woke up
Level Summary
The first level will teach the player basic movement including walking and jumping. Otherwise, teach the player how to use bat dash to get through pits and light hazards, and bite the human to control him.
​
Map
Design Thoughts
This is the tutorial level, and it serves multiple teaching functions:
· Basic control (Move, Jump, Dash)
· Die in light
· Use the Switch to turn the nearest Wide Light off
· Dash through thin light safely
· Die touching spikes
· How to bite a human
· Swap character
· The Human can survive in light
Some thoughts on the design:
1. Teach the jump + dash in a safe environment
2. Repeat and test it in a dangerous environment to give the player some challenge
3. Try to teach the switch in a place the player can notice they make this choice
4. Teach the dash through thin light
5. Repeat but extend the challenge by adding some spikes to force the player to jump
6. Repeat the turning off switch thing but use a human to do it this time to test the player’s skills as well as teach new things.
Level 2: More boxes more fun
Level Summary
In the second level, introduce the Box to the player, and teach the player to control the human to move the Box and step on it to get to a higher place.
​
Map
Design Thoughts
​
With the Fatty introduced in level 1, in this level, I want to expand his ability to the player that he can lift the box.
1. Teach the player they can push the box by walking toward it. By using the box as a stepping stone to get to the higher platform to bite The Fatty, it acts as a hard gate to ensure the player learn this lesson.
2. Teach the player that the Fatty can lift the box. Use the Wide Light as a hard gate to make sure the player has to use this ability. We also add a conveyance on the wall to hint the player that the main character can stand on the holding box to reach a higher place.
3. Repeat the lifting box skill.
4. Expand the skill, the player needs to make the Fatty stand on a box and hold a box to support the main character with enough height to reach the exit.
​
Level 4: Time to go
​
Level Summary
The 4th level is the final level, which requires the player to use all the knowledge he learned from the former levels. The player needs to combine the scale and the box-lifting ability of the Fatty to pass the level.
Map
​
Design Thoughts
​
With all the basic skills introduced before, this level will challenge the player for using them all around.
1. At first there is a hard gate as the player will need a box to get to the 2nd part of the level. To get the box, the player needs to use the weight of The Fatty to weigh the left scale down and put the box and the main character on the right scale. Here the player will also learn the weight of the main character and the box is less than The Fatty.
2. In the 2nd part, the skill of letting the main character stand on the holding box to get to a higher platform will be tested. Then the player will reinforce what he has learned in the 1st part and use The Fatty to move the main character and the box onto the exit part by the scale.
​
Retrospective
WHAT WENT WELL
-
Tried to balance everyone’s thoughts on the game project and helped with communication between the artists and the programmers, because I really care the working atmosphere.
-
Adjusted the design according to the playtests’ feedback and kept making the game better and better.
-
I did my best on adjust myself according to the needs of the team, and helped other members as much as I can.
WHAT COULD
BE BETTER
-
Hadn’t kept updating the documentation regularly to reflect the design changes, which makes the final documentation work a little bit harder.
-
Not very well prepared for Kleenex test, like sometimes I forget to welcome the tester and introduce our team.
WHAT
I
LEARNED
-
How to work in a cross-cultural environment
-
Keep updating the documentation based on the design change every time
-
Be prepared for any event (like playtest) relating to the player and the public. Introduce the team and the game professionally.