Level & Game Designer
Etherborn: Structured Thoughts
Duties: Level and Puzzle Designer, Artist (including VFX, materials, models, etc).
Tools: Unity, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop.
This level narrates the long process through which the main character starts to develop a rational awareness of the world around. It is inspired by a combination of the art from Piet Mondrian and Russian abstract painters such as Kazimir Malevich and Olga Rozanova. The reason is not merely aesthetic: all of these painters seeked a perfect, pure experience of art, for which they rejected figuration in favor of colors, shapes, and the dynamics between them. Their art styles were very rational, which fits the theme of the level.
My Tasks
- Designed and tested level-specific game mechanics.
- Created art mockups to validate the style.
- Designed independent puzzles and situations and set an appropriate order to create a sense of progression and pacing.
- Planned and built the gray boxes.
- Provided the creative vision and ensured every member of the team was working towards it.
- Communicated with the music composer to set intentions, mood, and genre.
- Did the technical setup of interactive elements, such as switches and moving pieces.
- Sequenced and gameplay cutscenes.
- Manually configured the camera system across the whole level.
- Modeled and implemented most of the art assets, including 3D models, textures and materials.
- Created new shaders whenever needed (using Amplify Shaders).
- Optimized and reworked certain shaders for consoles, with the goal of displaying practically the same visuals across all platforms.
- Designed and set up baked and real-time lights, VFX, sky, LUTs and particles.
Moving tiles
Level Design wise, this is the most complex stage of the game, as it contains many possible paths, twists and interconnections built within the same masses, and with a few moving parts.
This level includes a new mechanic: protruding tiles. White ones come out and form walls when the player gets near on the same ground orientation, while the black ones are activated on any angle.
The connections
A key point to make this level engaging was to surprise constantly with new connections and paths. Similarly to Desert of the Mind, but on a much larger scale.
The camera system
Etherborn uses fixed camera coordinates relative to the player, manually assigned by us to independent volumes. These volumes can be configured to apply the camera position only if the player is walking on a specific gravity orientation of six possible (+x, -x, +y, -y, +z, -z) to cover all possible scenarios. The reason is the optimal view the player needs for each surface is usually different depending on the orientation.
The system was programmed by Carles Triviño Massó, while I placed and set up every volume.
To see more examples, please check Desert of the Mind.
Additional Credits
Music: Gabriel Garrido Garcia
Producer and 3D art assistant: Alexandra Escudero Pérez
Lead programmer: Carles Triviño Massó
Additional programming: Miquel R. Gámez
Sound FX: Matias Lizana
Character animations: Frederic Vergés, David Boada
