Blog #1

This marks the first day of the third week of attending FIEA. This is the first entry in a series of blog posts I will be making for my time at FIEA. It has been an interesting transition from successful attorney to novice video game designer, but it feels right. It feels like the path I should have taken a long time ago. This blog post will primarily be highlights of work product and goals to serve as potential portfolio pieces and as benchmarks to track the progression over this year.

One of the first things I want to start with is what I have determined to be “The Perfect Resume.” This list includes the skillsets that I believe would get a level designer hired at most AAA game companies. I would imagine that having most of these skills would make any applicant competitive for a level design job in the industry, but not all are necessary. Many AAA game studios will have proprietary or heavily modded game engines and pipelines that don’t strictly follow the items on this list. However, I believe that spending time honing these skills and creating excellent portfolio pieces from these will be the most effective way to get interviews at AAA game companies.

• Game Engines: UE5/UE4 and Unity

• Prototyping

• Visual Scripting (Blueprints)

• Scripting (C#, LUA, Python (NaughtyDog))

• White Boxing

• Kit Bashing (combining modular pieces in asset packs and making them into something bigger)

• Maya (at the proxy level)

• 3ds Max (at the proxy level)

• 2d skills for pre-planning

• Photoshop/Illustrator

• Combat Design

• Lighting

• Scope

• Photoshop/Illustrator

• Developing map plans

• Contributing to pre-existing maps while maintaining art style

• Level design document planning

• Size, scale, how many areas, how many encounters, how many quests

• Set Dressing

• Optimization

• Bug Fixing/Logging

• Jira

• Perforce

• Player Psychology

• Flow

• Pacing

• Conveyance

• Confluence

• Wikipedia for game development, online hub for game development.

• Tells designers Pipelines for programming, art, design

• Houdini

• Sculpting with noise (environment artist/Level design

• Setting up all aspects of a map including spawn points, objective areas, boundaries, buy volumes, and map objects, collision volumes, buy zone walls, and nav mesh

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Work Product from the First Two Weeks

Level Design Work:

Cruise Ship Aerial (1hr)

Cruise Ship (1 hr)

Lincoln Memorial (1 hr)

The process for creating the cruise ship and the Lincoln Memorial began with the the research phase. Researching stock images of these places in real life gave a good basic shape to work from. Trying to figure out layers general shapes and etc to get the foundation laid was the first step. After getting the basic shape I went to add more detail via the modeling tools to add more definition and detail to the basic shapes. This assignment is intended to quickly create a playable level that is scaled correctly so these are intended to be mere first passes of how it would feel to play in a zone and not intended to be finalized levels. One thing I have learned this week is that level designers are really the intermediaries or liaisons between the teams responsible for game design and the art team. The technical and gameplay designers give mechanic and function ideas to the game, level designers give those mechanics and functions a functional and fun place to occur, and the art team takes the functional level and gives it context and beauty.

Rapid Prototype Production

Our first 1 week project is a board game. While I am the level designer on this team of five game designers, my role has been significantly more global. Day 1 we pitched the game "Werewolf" which is a game with up to four players, three of whom are humans, and one player is the Werewolf. The goal of the game is for the humans to collect three train parts and get to the train before the Werewolf eats them. This map was created using Hexagons in Unreal Engine 5 to form a classic gameboard which will be printed onto PVC to create a high quality board game feel with a prototype price point in mind. (Time spent making the board in Unreal, 30 minutes.) (Significant additional time has been spent creating the rules book, ability and movement cards for the Werewolf and Humans, and other balance and tuning systems)

Rules, Abilities, and Tuning Levers created for this game

Video Game Design 1

Creative Hooks:

One assignment was to create creative hooks for certain character archetypes. The goal of this was to think through potential characters you might see in a game and to make them more engaging and interesting. The example given to us was to take a vampire and analyze the typical tropes of a vampire. For example: Vampire -> Blood is food -> Blood lust -> Compulsion to eat -> Eating disorder

Hook: morbidly obese Vampire that can’t fly, and struggles to do typical vampire things due to its weight.

The ones I created for this assignment are as follows:

Ghosts

• Ghost → Death is unfinished business → Emotional ties to the living world → Inability to move on → Not limited to just human ghosts -> Some ghosts are lovable (Casper)

  Hook: Adorable ghost dog eternally trying to catch a Frisbee

Mailmen

• Always on time → Unyielding commitment to deliveries → Braving extreme weather conditions → Deliveries never fail

  Hook: Mailman navigates natural disasters to ensure delivery.

Demons

• Make deals with humans → Deceitful nature → Immune to most harm → Exploit loopholes in contracts

  Hook: Contract demon bound by "no signature, no power."

Wizards

• Masters of magic → Knowledge seekers → Obsession with rare spells and artifacts → Sometimes a bit quirky or eccentric -> Risk of magical overload

  Hook: ADHD student wizard who gets distracted while spellcasting

Aliens

• Advanced technology → Obsessed with studying Earth → Lacks social understanding → Comedic misunderstandings

  Hook: Alien disguised as a human thinks the middle finger is a universal greeting and uses it inappropriately.

Soldiers

• Warmongers -> Love of guns and explosives -> “Hoorah” attitude -> Frontline bravery -> Have to come home to normal lives

  Hook: Soldier treats everyday tasks like battlefield missions.

Vikings

• Seafaring warriors → Relentless explorers → Fearless in battle → Driven by the pursuit of glory → Pillaging and raiding of small villages

  Hook: Fiercest Viking faints at the mere sight of blood.

Unicorn

• Pure and good -> Magical powers -> Power stems from Unicorn Horn -> White -> Strong -> Difficult to catch

  Hook: Unicorn’s honesty compels it to reveal magic secrets constantly.

Cops

• Law enforcers → Uphold justice → Adhere to rules and regulations → Navigate bureaucracy → Sometimes have a strict or no-nonsense demeanor,

  Hook: Cop writes reports for every minor infraction, no matter how small.

Pirate

• Seekers of treasure → Masters of deception → Fearless on the high seas → Adventure-driven → Often have a strong sense of camaraderie -> Irregular patterns with lots of improvisation

  Hook: Pirate captain fights using only improvised weapons like paddles and spoons.

Robots

• Programmed for efficiency → Unyielding logic → Struggles with human emotions → Literal interpretation of tasks → Often have a limited range of functions

  Hook: Robot refuses to stop cleaning until dirt is extinct.

Werewolves

• Transform under the full moon → Dual nature (human/wolf) → Instinct-driven → Conflict between human and beast → Often struggle with uncontrollable transformations

  Hook: Werewolf transforms but is obsessed with chasing laser pointers.

Politicians

• Skilled in persuasion → Crafting policies → Navigating public opinion → Often have a strategic mindset → Balancing personal and public interests -> have to go through the correct channels and systems to accomplish tasks

  Hook: Politician can’t do even the smallest things because of bureaucratic red tape

Cowboys

• Mastery of the frontier → Skilled in horseback riding and lassoing → Strong sense of honor → Hardworking and resilient → Often have a rugged appearance

  Hook: Cowboy lassoes tumbleweeds for fun, making them his pets.

Vampires

• Immortal beings → Depend on blood for sustenance → Often struggle with their darker nature → Supernatural powers → Can be charismatic and influential

  Hook: Vampire collects rare blood vials like fine wine.

Zombies

• Reanimated corpses → Driven by basic instincts → Often seek human brains → Limited cognitive function → Struggle with decay

  Hook: Zombie craves gourmet brains, ignores regular ones.

Programing 1

Week 1 has been setup for visual studio and perforce along with programming basics like variables, strings, and the classic “Hello World” print string assignment. Our first real assignment is a turn based combat game which will be posted in the next blog post so stay tuned!