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Die Less

Designer | Programmer
Team of 8
January 2025 - May 2025

• PLAY

    Die Less is a First Person Horror Survival game where you are the sole maintenance worker of a deep sea facility and must complete tasks to restore facility operations before the building's oxygen levels deplete or you fall victim to the hostile creature that wanders the underwater facility.Game Studio Course
    This was a semester long project for the purpose of collaboratively developing a game in a small team. It simulated professional collaboration between different departments, encouraging meetings and scrums, check-ins and task management, and more. It brought the experience of setting tasks for each department and tracking them, along with setting our own predictions for how long each task will take to have us build the skill for more accurate predictions.

Designing Mechanics
I took part in deciding light-based mechanics by writing down concepts and bringing in references, organizing into a presentation and sending it to the team.I conceptualized interactions that would take player mechanics and have the player use them in unique ways for vastly different purposes, turning them into puzzles and adventures.Level Design ProcessStomach Level
When some mechanics were finally decided I got to work on creating a space that had placeholders filled with events and interactions. This was an introductory level to teach the player their ability: shooting a beam of light to burn certain objects. And from the talks with the narrative team, the space was inside the body of a whale with bodily functions potentially coming into play. One of the things that instantly came to mind was an area with stomach acid that had limited footing, tendons for limited time platforms or holding things together, and gas "geysers" for getting airborne and verticality. So, I sketched a layout on paper based on this and would have multiple layers. I made the beginning area open so the player could wander and explore. Then the second layer would be more restricted and smaller to reduce overall space and be more linear than the layer before. A ramp leads to the second layer, but one end of the ramp will be held by some rope or tendons, and the player would need to burn it to lower.I then created a gray box in Unity and set up placeholder interactions like the ramp one and another where the player would need to burn multiple tendons to unblock doorways and then that would be the end of the level.When thinking about how the level end would look like, I learned that the team never discussed how were levels going to be structured? Level selection? Chapters? Seamless? Open World? This is where I began to realize there was more to level design than just creating spaces. Asking questions about flow, intent, needs, and other things was important. I then got more information about how to structure levels: big levels where the player starts in massive middle room with some puzzles and interactions and will have doorways into smaller rooms that introduce new mechanics and new sets of interactions.I showed the finished prototype to the team, and it received positive feedback, so I continued working on it alongside the programming team to implement mechanics for more interactions. The size of the level grew as the team got more ambitious with interactions, like, freeing and guiding NPCs to certain areas, new platforming areas, missing platforms that needed to drop down from higher layers in the level, and more.We got to the end of the sprint, and we showed the team what we had. We got feedback that the level was too complex for an introductory level, too big, and too open that lead to players wandering and getting lost. The level did not do its job and would confuse the player instead was a little too passionate for what it was supposed to be and something simpler and more linear to get the job done. Something more straightforward would have been better to ease the player into learning the game and mechanics and then we can add from there. An area too big would not guide the player without any way to guide the player to where they needed to go. Something more confined would have done a better job at keeping puzzles within a reasonable range preventing the player from needing to seek it out and becoming confused.Seeing the way my level worked, we decided to change directions and push for more linear levels that lead from one scene to the next, and having levels belonging to chapters that will determine the setting the levels take place in. My level ended up getting scrapped and had to begin working on a new introductory level that would focus on teaching the player two mechanics: using lenses to burn ropes, and their short range light dash ability.It was sad to let go of my level after all the time I spent working and iterating on it but it had its flaws and did not work with the new direction we are taking so it would be inefficient to spend time and resources altering the level. However, the feedback was helpful for what I failed to account for when making the space and piled too much into it so I used what I learned for this new level that would be taking place in a wrecked pirate ship.This new level would be a series of small rooms that would provide 1-2 puzzles that require the player to use the specific mechanic without much effort and then move on to the next level. And since I now had an idea of where the level was going to be set in, I was able to gain a better visual for the level with rooms that made sense and belonged within a pirate ship.Instead of sketching it out on paper, I got straight to gray boxing and prototyping in Unity. And now that I was more comfortable with Unity's ProBuilder, I was able to create a layout much faster. The level would start with a dark room and the player falling into a hole that was covered by loose floor boards. They fall into the brig below and into one of the prison cages. This is where they learn about their light dash mechanic, letting them dash through certain objects. They navigate to the door and enter the next room where they learn to use and aim the lenses reflecting light from the player's body and burning objects. The ropes burn and the platforms fall and they can cross the platforms to leave the level. Now the player knows two mechanics and can be tested with more challenging puzzles in later levels.This was a valuable experience in my level design career for taking in feedback and iterating with new ideas. This was also a great experience for adapting when the scope and direction of the project changes and needing to make a whole level from scratch. I cannot wait for when we start up again so I can use what I've learned to create more levels as well as learn more about level design.What I learned
Level Design is about asking questions. What does this level want to accomplish? What does it want the player to feel? And then translating into physical space through either high-quality assets or basic shapes is the job of Level Designers. Taking into account how the player will be moving, what they see, where will they be looking, what mechanics are being used here, and how will it all connect together.