BioShock – Mad God | Personal Project | UE 5 | 2022
NOTE: This is an live page which I’m using to document my level design process. Apologies if its a little all over the place.
This level was a personal project about designing a fictional first level for a DLC for the original BioShock. I wanted to focus on pacing, atmosphere, environmental storytelling and introducing the player to mechanics and a new plasmid.
The following shows some of the various gameplay blueprints that I’ve scripted for the level e.g. actor blueprints for the Secruis doors so I can reuse them throughout the level, a teleport blueprint contained in the Level Blueprint and the sequence which plays the lighting event as the player enters the lighthouse.
Actor Blueprint for opening and closing doorLevel Blueprint to teleport playerMain door & Lighting sequence
Level Design Research
I began by replaying BioShock, BioShock 2 and Minerva’s den to get a general feel for how the levels are designed. As I played, I noted down, the general layout of the levels, environmental storytelling aspects, story events, splicer attacks and pickups.
Around 6 years ago I began working on an idea for a personal level design project based on the original…
Big Tidy Up
Role: Designer | Platform: PC and Xbox | Genre: Casual | Engine: Custom | 2010 |
Overview
The Big Tidy Up Game was a team university project for the design for industry module. It was pitched to the Keep Britain Tidy charity as part of their big tidy up campaign in 2010. After finishing university, the team decided to keep working on the game and add further polish eventually releasing to the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) platform.
Responsibilities
Worked with client and designed games around their creative vision
Tuning and balancing of game systems
Authored and maintained Game Design Documentation and project management
Created 2D assets
Organised play test sessions with student clubs and collected feedback
Play tested and documented design issues and bugs
Brainstorming with the team to iterate on features
Awards
The game was entered into the 2010 Game Republic Student Show Case and received the following awards:
1st place for the Sumo Digital award for Game technology
2nd place for the Team 17 award for Game Design
2nd place for the Rockstar Leeds ward for best Team
3rd place for the Just Add Water award for Game Art
The Corridor: On Behalf Of The Dead is a sci-fi horror game set in a dystopian future where law enforcement invade criminals’ minds to uncover their guilt.
I co-created the studio and was involved in all aspects of the games development and worked in close collaboration with artists, programmers and animators to create a rich, immersive and engaging player experience.
Responsibilities
Designed and developed entire sections of the game. Worked from high-level design briefs and pushed them to release-quality player experiences.
Created blockmesh level prototypes. This included – but not limited to – level layout development, world building, narrative beats, puzzle design and AI encounters.
Designed and scripted player interactions and gameplay events using various tools including visual scripting, cinema director and Mecanim.
Designed and implemented AI behaviour tree for enemy encounters and paths for NPC’s enemy encounters.
Authored and maintained several documents including GDD and golden path level playthrough documentation for use by team members.
Designed and implemented world space User Interface with a focus on compatibility with traditional and VR experiences.
Worked in close collaboration with a programmer, artist and creative writer to craft an immersive and engaging player experience.
Play tested and documented design issues, bugs and other aspects that affected player experience.
Organised play test sessions through discord and collected feedback
Organised a multidisciplinary team of 4, virtually across multiple time zones
