Last year, I joined the CGMA Academy during their fall course for the Level Design in Unreal Engine 5 class. The teachings from Shane Canning were exactly what I was looking for, and the supervision and feedback from Rob Colonico helped me reach the quality and direction needed to work in professional titles. Each week, I was tasked with different level ideas that I could develop, and then we had rounds of feedback to see our mentors' and other alumni's opinions. Here you have some of my best works:
ASIAN INSPIRED CITY
For one of our first assignments, we had to create an asian inspired neighbourhood, in an open but limited area, with an open shop that players could enter. I started taking inspiration from games like Kyle and Lynch 2 and the Yakuza series. I wanted to make these streets big enough to be very crowded with NPCs, but at the same time make it possible to lose yourself walking through narrow streets and alleys. For the buildings, I wanted to make something that could mix rural and traditional asian houses; at the same time, you have big apartment buildings and lots of cables. You can check some of the gameplay HERE
JUNGLE LEVEL
This next layout had to be a level that starts within a natural and organic enviroment, to then change to a temple. The structure I followed was first exploration, then platforming, and finishing with a combat area. The games I got inspired from for this work were third-person shooters such as the Uncharted series or Tomb Raider.
3D PLATFORMER
We also had to do other types of levels for different game genres. This layout was for a 3D platformer, for which I took inspiration from games such as the 3D Super Mario titles (Sunshine, Odyssey) or Banjo-Kazooie. Here, you have to collect 3 big stars placed in iconic landmarks, which act as the objectives of the level and require the user to play around with the jumping and flying mechanics. There are coins and some other hidden collectables spread through the place, in order to enhance the exploration and feelings of discovery of the player.
SURVIVAL HORROR LEVEL
As level designers, we also need to learn how to portray emotions within our work. Fear and horror are very fun to play with, but at the same time, you have to be aware of not boring or exhausting the player with hard or tedious gameplay. Inspired by games such as Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil, the horror level I made was based on an early story I used to work on in my free time. Our protagonist suffers from nightmares after the death of his wife, and one of these nights, he wakes up to a portal emanating from a family picture that teleports him back to his old art university, where he learned his craft and met the love of his life. The level ends with the first enemy encounter, when the tension is at its highest.
PLAYING WITH SCALE
One way level designers start working with their ideas is by taking reference from real life, like studying a real street or building and making it inside a game engine. Our task for this new layout was to play with scale, changing the perspective of our player by making things very big or very small. I chose to approach this level with an idea similar to Toy Story, where characters are toy-sized so everything looks gigantic to them, making mundane things like a table look like a fun playground. The objective is to free these little guys from the room, so they have to open the big door. To do that, you, the player, have to climb to the highest shelves and push out a lamp with the shape of the moon so the handle of the door moves.
NAUGHTY DOG LEVEL DESIGN
For our final project, we had complete freedom to choose any idea, and what I did was try to recreate the level of a game already existing. I chose The Last of Us 2, mostly because the way Naughty Dog creates levels is now the standard in the industry for third-person shooters, so it's a nice title to study. I used the blueprints from an old art faculty building in Madrid, to then destroy it in a way that could create interesting gameplay. You start exiting a nearby metro station, to then find a way to enter the building and reach the top floors in order to get a better view of the destination of our survivor.
If you are interesting in knowing more, or even playing this prototypes, feel free to reach out to me
Thanks :)