Boxy
Roles: Level Designer // Project Timeline: 3 Weeks // Team: Solo Project
Overview
Boxy is a grey boxed Action Adventure 3D Platformer where the player must explore and escape the labyrinth they are trapped in.
Project Goals
-
Effectively convey level design principles in a grey box state
- Create a project that successfully showcases the teaching, testing, and challenging of the main gameplay mechanics
- Use realistic metrics to build upon during the first art pass
- Design puzzles that are solved through exploration of the level
Design
For this project, I wanted to emphasize player exploration to increase the immersion of the level. With a very small scope, I created classic pressure plate puzzles that would require the player to run off and find the missing pressure plate to allow them to progress throughout the level. Implementing these puzzles allowed for a more complex game, while also making use of the movement mechanics in interesting ways.
In this project, I wanted to design for multiple player types. To achieve this goal, I split up my level design between three main paths.
Main Path - For players who just want to finish the level
Alternate Path - For players who want to take a different approach
Bonus Path - For players who want to collect all of the rewards
Purposely designing different paths forced me to do constant playtesting to ensure my design thinking matched the different player profiles. This created emergent gameplay for most of my players.
Learning Outcomes
-
Create emergent gameplay by designing different paths with different purposes
- Convey signifiers through grey boxing
- Drive immersion through puzzle design
