Into The Frontier

Role: Team Leader, Level Designer
Duration: September - October 2024 (7 weeks)
Engine: Unreal Engine 5.4.4

Into the Frontier is a 3D sci-fi survival game that I developed with a team of six designers, artists, and programmers over the course of seven weeks. Each of us created a pitch document for a game idea we wanted to make, and my idea, Into the Frontier, received the most votes. Since the concept was my idea, I became the team leader. In addition to level designing for the project, this meant I also worked on managing project scope, assigning member tasks through software like Asana, and scheduling/leading team meetings and conversations.

The game begins with a crash landing on an alien planet, where the player must discover and craft parts to repair their ship and escape the hostile world. The game includes a crafting system, interacting and picking up items, and third-person shooter combat.

Goals:

Lead a team of developers to conceptualize, integrate, and design a 3D survival game while managing member tasks and maintaining project scope.
Create strong design documentation that includes a game design document and top-down map.
Hit each weekly milestone and deliver a fully playable game prototype with polished mechanics and art.

Project Roles

Designed and blocked out the crash zone starting area, the alien outpost zone, and the alien bunker zone.
Created level scripts for item pickups, main quest progression, and cinematics using Unreal Sequencer.
Worked closely with the 3D environment artists to establish level geometry and replace blockouts with finished art.

Level Designer

Team Leader

Led the team in meetings and Discord discussions.
Assigned group member tasks and organized week-by-week asset and project progress through Asana.
Managed and maintained project scope.
Worked on time management and efficiency when it came to completing tasks in a timely manner.

The Design Process

The design process started with team members submitting game pitch documents and voting on our favorites. My idea received the most votes, so I became the team leader and organizer for the project.

Pitch Document

I pitched a sci-fi 3D survival game where the player crash-lands on an alien planet and has to repair their ship to escape.
Inspired by survival games like Sons of the Forest, Subnautica, and Minecraft.
Included elements such as hunger and thirst systems, crafting, third-person combat, and exploration.

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After the game was selected, the three designers on the team spent the following week brainstorming ideas and completing an 18-page game design document that served as the foundation for the project.

Game Mechanics

Hunger and Thirst: The player's hunger and thirst meter must be maintained to survive. The player can acquire food and water by exploring the environment, or by crafting.
Crafting: The player has a crafting menu they can bring up at any time. To complete the game, the player must craft three special ship repair components, the ingredients of which are located throughout the planet.
Basic Combat: The combat remained basic to keep the project within scope, but the player can engage aliens on the planet by aiming down sights and shooting them with their gun. Ammo can also be found around the planet to replenish ammo.
Sprinting: The player can use the sprint input key to move faster, requiring stamina.

Top-Down Map

The 3 designers on the team created our own top-down maps and combined features we liked from all of them. The image below is the map I created, and it ultimately became the primary reference map we followed, with a few changes to add in interesting ideas from the other designers.

Scripting

We had a primary scripter on the project, but I assisted when their workload became too heavy. I created many of the level events for picking up items, activating objects, and the main quest line triggers and UI. I also created most of the game's cinematics using Unreal Sequencer.

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Alpha Build Versus Final Build

The screenshots below compare our alpha build with the final build. Both areas were level designed and blocked out by me using Unreal static meshes and brushes, as well as the landscape tool for the outside area.