Luciano van Waas
Level Designer
BUas Industry Showcase Day awards!
● Year 2 Best Art
● Year 2 Audience Favourite
For Starters...
Project Roles and Responsibilities
Game Description
General Information
“Play as a mysterious, magical character, helping souls to pass on to the afterlife by collecting scattered pieces of their soul. Explore an oneiric limbo world and face challenges to complete your mission and unravel the secrets and mourning of the lost souls.”
Vana, formerly known as Biome, is a 3D platformer inspired by games such as The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Banjo-Kazooie and Alba: A Wildlife Adventure. The project took a total of 16 weeks to develop and was made by a team of 21.
I only worked on Vana for the duration of its production and release phase, meaning I was only present for 8 out 16 weeks of its development.
21 Developers
16 Weeks
Developed in Unreal Engine 4, Released on Itch
As for my personal roles and responsibilities within the team, I was one of the level designers, as well as one of the more prominent QA testers. Opposed to many of the other projects I had the pleasure of working on over the years, this project allowed me to focus on the task at hand and really hone my craft as a level designer. With this only being the second 3D platformer I’ve ever worked on, however, this proved rather challenging.
My biggest contributions to this project were the initial few blockouts and level sketches I’d made, being in charge of level streaming, the level section I was in charge of, and the assembly of the final level. The final level consists of everyone’s individual contributions, at least as far as the physical level goes, put in place by me. This does not include the end-of-section cutscenes and triggers.
Level Streaming
How-to Document
Being the only one to have worked with level streaming in the past, it was only logical for me to take care of it and set it up. I created a how-to document in order to make level streaming as accessible to the rest of the team as possible.
I set up a demo level containing three platforms and two newly created blueprints in order to explain how level streaming would work.
This video shows the player character walking through an invisible trigger, enabling the area in front of them. They then walk through another trigger to disable that same area. This is meant to simulate the concept behind loading and unloading areas through triggers.
This was the prototype shown to the team to prove level streaming was possible.
Combining everyone's work
One of my responsibilities as the one in charge of level streaming was to combine everyone’s work into a single level. There were 5 sections total, 1 of which was entirely made by me. These 5 sections were developed in sublevels, making it possible to turn any given section on (and off) at any given time.
Having combined all 5 sections, the team and I came to a conclusion: the level simply does not feel fun (nor cohesive) as an experience. Turns out, creating 5 different sections by 5 different people in 5 different sublevels doesn’t create the most cohesive experience. This was reflected by playtester feedback. Namely, playtesters found the experience to be boring, unfun and like they were playing through 5 different visions of the underlying concept at once.
This caused us to really sit down, think about what we’ve done wrong and recreate the magic we felt the game had back when it was still a prototype. This is when we decided to remake (almost) the entire game. The player character and narrative stayed the same, of course, as there were little no complaints about either of those, but the individual level design of each of the 5 sections was redone.
Once done, this garnered a much more positive response from both teachers and playtesters alike, and ultimately won us the year 2 audience favourite award.
Now, let’s finally talk about my section: section 2. I’ll be going over the original section first, then the remake.
Section 2
Getting Started
Based on Xenoblade Chronicles’ Ether Mine, my section, Section 2, featured quite a bit of verticality. At first, the plan was to platform around, or inside of, a giant cylinder of some sort. However, there were two issues with this.
Narrative-wise, having a giant pillar in the middle of the level would lessen the effects of the giant tree at the end of the level. Environment art-wise, how can you possibly justify a giant pillar in the middle of the level when everything else is normal-sized? As a result, I decided to scrap the idea entirely and went for a more diagonal approach.
One of the problems I quickly ran into, was my inability to fill out the play space. This was before I knew not to just create an empty level only to try and fill it in down the line. Always design with purpose. Either way, I contacted one of my teachers and asked for a few pointers. These pointers came down to me needing to sketch out more gameplay moments. And that is exactly what I did.
In search of clarity and overview, I listed all of our LD ingredients. Not too long after, I started sketching. This gave me a better understanding of what I was actually trying to make. This is also when I settled upon a general setting and difficulty level.
This sketch shows general ideation regarding the level’s ending, as well as its structure and shape.
This sketch shows a handful of gameplay moments, as well as general ideation regarding the level’s shape.
This sketch shows a multitude of gameplay moments featuring moving and push/pull platforms.
This sketch shows a handful of miscellaneous gameplay moments and layout opportunities.
This sketch shows the full list of ld ingredients. It was used to create and inspire gameplay moments.
This sketch shows the level’s individual gameplay moments, essentially acting as a superficial beat sheet.
With the sketching process behind me, at least for the time being, I started experimenting and messing around in my gym level. This is where the level’s first iteration was born.
Section 2 – 1st Iteration (Unmetricised)
This video shows the first iteration of Section 2. Metrics were not yet considered.
Section 2 – 2nd Iteration (Metricised and Built Upon)
This video shows the second iteration of Section 2. Metrics and previously received feedback were considered.
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Section 2 – 3rd Iteration (Iterated Upon and In the Combined Level)
This video shows the third iteration of Section 2. This is the final version of the section before the rework. Footage taken in the previously mentioned combined level.
Section 2: Reworked
The Process
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Alongside 2 others, I was tasked with reworking section 2. Because this decision was made so late in development, we had to rework the entire section within a few days, as the game was set to release a little over a week later. This meant little to no room for error. So, in order to ghet all of us to same page immediately and make sure we all follow the same set of rules, we decided upon the following pipeline:
- Sketch out a high-level plan. What do we want the player to experience? Do we need to introduce any new mechanics?
- Block out the space. Practically, how is this going to work? How big does everything roughly need to be?
- Refine the space. Does the section feel comfortable to traverse? Is there any form of leashing present?
- Set-dressing the space. Does the section match the aesthetic of the rest of the game? Is the section bright enough? What about visual signposting?
This was the fourth and final significant iteration of the section at hand.
The Sketch
This sketch shows a very superficial overview of the section’s layout. As we only had a few days to develop the entire thing, we felt it was sufficient for what we were trying to achieve.
The Screenshots
This screenshot shows the first section of the level. I labelled this part as ‘ambiguous platforming’.
This screenshot shows the second section of the level. I labelled this part as ‘circular platforming’.
This screenshot shows the third section of the level. I labelled this part as ‘ending’.
The Playthrough
This video shows the fourth (and final) iteration of Section 2. Opposed to the previous few iterations, it is fully set-dressed.
Marketing and Publishing
Itch Page Maintenance
I spent little time on the front-end of the marketing team. Instead, I made sure to get everything to function as intended on the back-end. I was in charge of things like keeping our builds, description, development logs, metadata and screenshots up to date.
Over the course of the block, I added an overview of the game’s controls, a list of little details about the game and its current state (also known as the metadata), some install instructions (and a “ReadMe.txt” file inside the build folder), a development log for each published build (pre-release notes featured “General Changes”, “Fixes” and “Known Issues”, post-release notes featured more generalised “Patch Notes”), and things like promotional images.
I published a total of eight builds over the course of the second and third sprint. I made use of simple naming conventions for build versions, as can be seen here, and published builds and development logs on a regular basis.
Promotional IMages
Teaser Trailer
I created a short teaser trailer meant for our Twitter account to indicate the release of our Early Access build. This build came in later than I’d have liked it to, but it came in nonetheless.
As for the process, I set up a level sequencer and shot a couple of scenes in-engine, then went into Premiere Pro and edited the shots. Easier said than done, however, as I had to learn the basics of Premiere Pro before I could even start to think about editing this thing. This process taught me a lot (like how it’s good to block out trailers before adding footage to them in order to be able to shoot more focused footage) and I’m excited to do more things like this in the future.
This video shows the teaser trailer for Vana’s early access build. This was my first time using level sequencers, as well as premiere pro.
Takeaways
Takeaways
Pro-activity is just about the most valuable skill one can possess. Seeing Olivier dabble in and out of basically every part of development made me realise how important pro-activity is.
Know your dependencies. Know who’s depending on you and who you’re depending on. Ask questions about things like the narrative. Collaborate. Great level design is a team-wide effort.
Establish a first iteration of your work early on. Put it in a build. Playtest it. Get some feedback on it. You’re wasting your time overly polishing untested work.
Do not overplan. Not only does it more your tasks more prone to being cancelled or going outdated; it also affects the other disciplines. A VA can’t implement or iterate upon their work if you’re stuck in designer limbo and not delivering anything.
Do not overdo it. I am not responsible for the rest of the team’s shortcomings. Furthermore, keep to deadlines, both soft and hard. Make sure the team caters their high-level planning to those couple deadlines. Deadlines are incredibly important. Not just for stakeholders and higher-ups, but also for the development team itself; for team-building and getting a sense of accomplishment.
Contact
© 2024 Luciano van Waas. All rights reserved.