Vision Holder & Lead Designer
Concept
Inspired by the childhood TV game shows Nickelodeon Guts and Legends of the Hidden Temple, I decided to create a fun rock climbing race adventure full of action moments and humor. Players would traverse epic mountain trails and routes to reach the peak in record time, all while discovering lost collectibles and avoiding deadly wildlife and hazards.
Development
Prototyping
and Iteration
I first created the ledge climbing mechanic that traced the location of a wall ledge and calculated its position and angle to validate it. After it was working, I had playtesters provide feedback on the movement. From that data, I iterated by letting the character continue climbing when the inputs were held down for faster gameplay. Later, as a team, to improve our climbing and platforming mechanics, we had players playtest in various sessions after each sprint to test the new adjustments to our mechanics. Players wanted a better understanding of the stamina usage shown on the stamina bar. With this feedback, we lowered the stamina usage for the movements, added a boost after hitting zero for 2 seconds, and limited the ability to use stamina when standing still. With these iterations, we made the gameplay more fun and engaging for the players.
Blockmesh and Gameplay
With this foundation, we created adventure race trail levels based on four unique mountain landscapes and weather environments. Keeping a rock and nature theme we created a base camp for players to begin their journey and select their path.
I directed the team to expand the gameplay loop to give the player a varied activity cycle by adding mechanic features such as moving wall puzzles, leaderboards, and stamina and health management. Additionally, we created trackers for the in-game collectibles, such as lost items and yeti-themed relics and coins. To keep the players on their toes we set wolves, foxes, and even the ilusive yeti to patrol and attack the player when entering their territory. Falling rocks and spewing lava would warn the player to continue moving toward the finish line. This made the game more dynamic for players.
Art Collaboration
As we prepared for launch, I worked diligently directing our art partners to create fun low-poly characters, climbing gear, and environment assets to polish the look of our game. Testing the character rigging to match our Unreal Engine skeletal mesh, we kept our animations and character movement fluid. The result of bringing the assets into the game made the play immersive and ready to record our fun action announcement trailer.
Level Design Concepts
Leading Players
As the level starts, players can see the mountain peaks and a glimpse of ruins far off near the finish line. As they progress up the trail, they encounter cinematic views of the finish line flags framed by arch ruins.
Natural elements such as the orientation of rocks and fallen trees point the player in the direction of the golden path through caves and across ledge gaps.
Old bridge chains and moving wall puzzles are oriented to lead the player upward over boulders and climbing walls.​
Gates and Challenges
As players explore the mountain trail, they encounter challenges that require climbing skills or solving puzzles by moving rock walls by activating pedestals. Large rock walls and long leaps over lava pools lead them past points of no return.
Crumbling old bridges collapse into lava, closing off their way back down the mountain and past moments of refuge.
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Special Yeti relics and lost climbing gear are placed in spots that require players to plan their route up and around large rock structures and hazards.
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The moving wall puzzles become more difficult after their introduction at camp, making the player plan their climb between pedestals to align the climbing ledges and walls to move forward. Some puzzles reward the player for thinking creatively off the beaten path.
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