Admission Project

Yo!  I'm Tempe! I used to be a drifter, but now I'm a student at FIEA. Here's where I'll leave my lessons about level design as I learn 'em. To start, I want to talk about my FIEA Examination Project.

I was expecting a lot of requirements from a project like this, but was actually very open ended. I had 2 weeks to make a some kind of level and make a video showing it off. Since I didn't have a theme to follow, I brainstormed for almost a half second before I thought about making a 2.5D platformer. I'd finished Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Collection on PC and loved it. I hadn't stopped thinking about the game and its levels, so I ended up thinking up a 2.5D platformer level for my project pretty quickly. 

My original brainstorming drawing. I always give myself a strict one hour for brainstorming- no less!

Originally I had the idea of an island with town a windmill, which the player would move through in 2.5D action platforming, but as soon as I got into engine, I decided to just focus on the windmill for scope. 

One thing I knew for sure from the start is that I didn't want to use any asset packs. Asset packs can make it difficult to keep a cohesive visual style, and not having a full, breathable level seemed like a death-sentence. Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect applying for FIEA, so I just assumed it would be stringent. 

I also wasn't sure if it was necessary to have gameplay in my level's demo, but I decided to play it safe and make a simple character to play through the level. I'd never used Unreal Engine before deciding to use it for this project, but I did some independent research and became comfortable with UE5 Blueprints. Using blueprints, I made a simple character and found a way to bind the movement to a curve- That's how you get a 2.5D platformer, after all. One of the bigger challenges was getting the character to face forward, even if you moved backwards along the spline. I fixed that by rotating the player by 180 degrees on the Z axis based on the movement key the player used. Kinda cheap, I know.

This actually took a while. Probably worth it...?

The character used in the game was originally a 3D model I made for a prop in another level- a plush doll of a cat character from yet another previous project. I had already rigged the model, so I made some quick animations for it and implemented it in Unreal. It was a great way to learn the tools, and was honestly astoundingly easy. Thanks UE5! 

Can you find him?????? 

Although I do quite love the built in Unreal Engine 5 modelling tools, I ended up using Blender for a lot of the level's props. It was much faster to simply model in Blender and import the models, especially for objects like gears, which can be made in a minute or less depending on the shape using Blender. Opening the models which were saved in my UE5 project file directly from the directory and into Blender was very nice- I think the plain .blend files even worked, which is wild!

Behold, a few of the props I modelled for the windmill.

One of the good thing about using a windmill as a level was how simple the props were to model. Honestly, that was a great idea. Good job past me.

For example, gears are simple, symmetrical objects. They look great in motion, and they're easy to model. Best of all, you can get away with giving them just one material- Some type of metal. The same is true for many of the wood models I used, though I did end up spending lots of time getting the UV's to move in the correct direction. Unreal's tools for that are good but not great. Even the more complicated objects, such as the windmill's ever-iconic sail, could be made with uncomplicated materials. Using more complicated materials is something I'm honestly terrible at- I need substance painter (or similar) experience. 

Anyways, in terms of the level's gameplay design, I wanted to have a gradual difficulty curve. I know that's literally the most basic tenet of game design, but it was still a consideration. For example, the start of the level is a flat area which mainly exists to show the player how the camera is going to move relative to the player's position. Then there are some simple jumps which can't really be failed, then a moving obstacle which needs to be avoided with good timing. Then, two jumps that need to be timed against a slowly moving threat, and finally, when the player moves outside the map, a series of relatively tight jumps which, if missed, would result in a game over.

I removed the walls for this screenshot. You can see the complete player route, and hopefully how it becomes more difficult over time! You can't see the end of the level, where the player gets onto the top of the windmill, though. Sad!

Ascending to the top of a structure is a very natural objective for a player in a platforming game, which is handy for me. Still, I tried to nudge the player in the correct direction in subtle ways. For example, in the starting area, the player simply moves from one side of the room to another, but since this is a 2.5D platformer, moving to the right will actually have the player move in a wide radius around the center of the structure. The shadow of the large gear above moves in the same exact way the player will, and since movement is naturally eye-catching, I think this helps the player subconsciously understand the movement system of the game as soon as they're exposed to it.

I also wanted a 'cool' moment for the player in this level. Even though it wasn't actually part of a larger level, it's still rewarding to have a twist here and there. In this case, I decided to zoom-out the camera when the player goes outside the windmill. I played around with a few different options, but at the end I decided to zoom out the camera slowly as the player ascends the side of the windmill using open windows as platforms. I think it ended up being a really cool effect, which captures the size of the structure scaled well. This did have the side effect of requiring more than just open ocean- I used UE5's landscape tools to quickly make some decently decorated islands out in the distance. This was another thing I didn't know about before hand, but it was pretty easy to pick up. Just another example of why making independent projects is incredibly effective for learning new skills. 

Now that I'm more formally studying level design, I wonder what sort of project I should do next. Something to push myself would be smart... I'll sleep on it!