I finished building our Player Hub area today. I did not use blockout for building the Hub, since this is a small place for players to upgrade their weapons via speaking with the Blacksmith and player can also find out more about this world by interacting with our second NPC by the statue. Players can use the teleporter to explore all 3 levels. I am currently doing blockout for Level 2. You can check out the Level 1 video here. https://youtu.be/eHMZ8gvoIN8
I am so glad and lucky to meet all our amazing teammates. Hex made the teleporter, our character and put together all the animation you see in this video, including health and stamina. We also have our own UI/UX designer and a composer/sound designer.
This project is by no means AAA or indie or a game jam. We just want to make something cool and this is my opportunity to create amazing levels for this game and grow more.
Day 6: I am almost done with finishing Level 2 Blockout Phase. We will have a total of three separate levels for this game. You can watch the Level 1 full showcase video above this comment.
Level 2 is a little bit bigger than Level 1 and players will have the opportunity to find an interesting story/lore about why our hero is on this journey.
I should be able to finish the blockout for Level 2 by tomorrow evening. I need to playtest the level and create an interesting landscape by sculpting and I need to plan the dungeon/mining areas for a flow that makes players feel excited and cautious. It was one of our teammates’ (Hex) ideas to have lava on this level and he gave me really cool Lava assets from his FAB and I took the lava idea a few steps further by taking references from games like Elden Ring, Gothic, Demon’s Souls, Zelda Series and New World: Aeternum.
Day 7: I am now finished with the entire Level 2 Blockout Phase. One more level to go to finish the entire Blockout to full design (make-up). You can watch the Level 1 full showcase video from my previous post.
I spent half a day playtesting this level for any potential issues. One of our teammates is currently implementing sounds via FMOD in Unreal Engine. This is my first time seeing FMOD in action and what he has told me so far sounds incredible and a really cool way to have sounds in the game. I will wait until he is finished to showcase some of his work in the upcoming video.
Interesting info about me: I have platinum in all the Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Elden Ring, Elden Ring Nightreign, Demon’s Souls and countless hours in the Zelda series, Gothic, Skyrim, Lords of the Fallen, Remnant 2, Jusant, Ghost of Tsushima, Dragon’s Dogma series, Lies of P, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War series, New World: Aeterrnum and so many more! My point here is that I know a thing or two when it comes to what players might feel and look at when playing the game for the first time. I don’t get to play games much anymore since I am so focused as a Level Designer on making levels that have inspired me.
When I am playtesting levels, I can put on my gamer hat and really get into the zone and having a team to do playtest helps a lot. In a bigger project, I would imagine that there would be a separate department to playtest or even bring in fresh players from outside but with our project we don’t have that, so we are using what we have to make this game!
Day 8,9 and 10 Combined: I finally finished the entire LevelB (Level 2) from Blockout Phase to Make-Up, and I am really proud of it. I have one more level to go to finish the entire Blockout to full design. I used my Blockout as guidance to put all the FAB assets together. I used PLA to manage all my actors neatly and like always, I used the Actor Palette plugin to bring in all the actors to my level. One of our teammates (Hex) implemented the Custom Sky and I added them to the level with his help.
I recycled my old PLA by breaking them and I reused the foliage by changing the texture to make it look like it belonged to this environment. One of the greatest things I’ve learned during this process was to make new-looking assets by using the same thing and being creative!
I took inspiration/reference from the Zelda Series, Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series (1983-1985), Dark Souls Series, Elden Ring, Demon’s Souls, New World: Aeternum and Gothic.
Our team is continually working to make this game together and we cannot wait for you to try it and kill enemies with these cool arrows. I am currently doing the final Level blockout (Level 3) and I wanted to take this time to showcase some of the work of our teammates.
The VFX you see here was put together by Hex from an asset pack and SFX was created by E. Our UI is currently being designed by Fish. I will soon showcase that when it’s done and in a couple of days you can check Level 3 entire blockout design.
I came up with the Target Dummy idea for the bow inspired by Remnant 2. I used a random pile of bags, sticks and a crystal from FAB assets to turn it into this design and Hex took this idea and turned it into different colored Target Dummies and even made all kinds of arrows.
This is it, the final blockout design for LevelC (Level 3) is complete. I am so proud of the work I have done. There will be a few more things to do, such as generating Overlap Events, Switching Phys Materials for appropriate footstep sounds, more playtesting, making a scene from my PLA to use for main menu background, but these are all mid to low priority. We are using Vikunja to track all our tasks. Huge thanks to Hex for setting it up.
I initially wanted to have some kind of library and castle together for this level, but we couldn’t find any free FAB assets that matched my vision. One of my teammates (Hex) suggested that we do a combo of Level 1 and 2 to make level 3 instead. I really liked his combo suggestion, but I couldn’t let go of the idea of having a library and somehow fit a small castle-like dungeon in the level.
I came up with a simple solution, doing a combo and making a library with a small dungeon-style castle by using all the assets from Level 1 and 2. For the library, I put together all the wood planks, beams, side panels, boxes and whatever I could salvage from all my used assets, and for the dungeon-style castle, I took all the rocks, stones, boulders, and pillars without using any new assets. The library area has a few secret rooms and the player has to find a lever in order to open the door to the main area.
This was a huge challenge for me, but I was able to pull it off with the right amount of focus, time management, tenacity and finesse.
The Level 3 blockout level design had to be made with a combination of primitive shapes from Unreal Engine and polished assets for what I needed.
This is it, I have now completed all 3 levels for this game. LevelC (Level 3) was a challenge, but I am very proud of the work I have done from Blockout to Polished design. I used my Blockout as guidance to put all the FAB assets together after playtesting. I used PLA to manage all my actors neatly and, like always, I used the Actor Palette plugin to bring in all the actors to my level.
Players aren’t able to run wild without thinking in Level 3 like Level 1 and Level 2. It is our final level. I want them to feel that it is the final level, and it is going to take some patience to figure out how to open the main area from the library. The test of patience here in Level 3 is not about getting good after dying over and over again from the boss fight, but about figuring out the puzzle to get access to the main area.
I took inspiration/references from the Zelda Series, Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series (1983-1985), Dark Souls Series, Elden Ring, Demon’s Souls, Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, Skyrim and Gothic. Thanks for watching and have a great day!
Interesting info about me: I have platinum in all the Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Elden Ring, Elden Ring Nightreign, Demon’s Souls and countless hours in the Zelda series, Gothic, Skyrim, Lords of the Fallen, Remnant 2, Jusant, Ghost of Tsushima, Dragon’s Dogma series, Lies of P, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War series, and so many more!
Here’s the game we made for our recent game jam (theme: branch). Wafin is an RPG-inspired game where the player takes on the role of a dog who is lost in the jungle. Our player is given the task of finding a way back to the village where he lives by collecting branches. This game requires a little bit of patience to learn; you will die many times, and you will need to find a way to split/lure enemies in order to kill them. As a player, you will also have to collect all the branches to find the Golden Branch location, which eventually leads you to your end goal.
Interesting Info: I originally pitched this idea to the team where the dog and the owners lived in a small village happily, but one day the war finds them and everyone is killed. The dog wakes up in the jungle, not knowing he is dead, and he collects all the memory fragments (branches) to remember, only to find at the end that everyone is dead. His owner was waiting for him all this time, and they all finally reunite and fly into the sky. I also wanted to have multiple secret puzzles, but with limited time to make this game, we decided to make the game smaller, where the dog’s main purpose is to find the town.
This has been an incredible journey, and I am so thankful to have teammates believing in my idea and helping me make this game. We won (1st place) the Diversion game jam. Winners’ games are going to be released on Steam with the help from Diversion.
Can’t wait to make more games! If you are reading this and having difficulty finding people to match your energy or studying Unreal Engine, do not give up, and you will find them. Keep pushing because making games as a team is way cooler than doing it all on your own!
