What Comes Next

Available on Steam!

What Comes Next is a project currently under development by my Studio Dandelion Developers.

This is the second game we develop and we are doing it during our third year of college. A demo of the game will be presented at Steam Next Fest and this will be our studios first commercial game. The team consisted of 4 graphical artists, 4 programmers, me as Producer and Designer and also some Consultants that support different areas of the project.

My Contributions

Lead Level Designer
Lead Game Designer
Producer
QA
Optimization

Level Design & Game Design

Because of our target audience, I wanted the game to be cozy, adventurous, somewhat challenging while still leaving space for exploration and for the narrative to take place. In order to do this, the focus of the Game Design & Level Design was to make beatiful environments, with level design that allow for these things in a fun dynamic way and for the core gameplay to be reflective of the adventurous narrative that we have.

Level Design Focus of the Game

The Level Design focuses heavily on well balanced pacing, creating tension through our puzzles and exploration. The idea was to make the overall gameplay have a good flow and using different level design techniques to help direct the player towards the critical path, while still allowing exploration. This was my third project working as Level Designer, so there was still many techniques I wanted to utilize, and perhaps we will in the future, as this game is still under development.

The Enemies

The narrative supports a wide variety of enemies to be placed in our levels, which requires a good way to communicate their threat to the player. We also created different environments that allows for multiple hiding spots.

Present a privileged perspective

By allowing the player to study the environment from a safe and high advantage point, they can set their own pace and push forward when they feel ready. This is even more necessary when the player faces stealth parts.

Depth & Geometry creates Direction

By opening up a larger space with more depth to the right, and a shorter more narrow space to the left. We can direct the player to the critical path through geometry and depth.

Pinch Points

By controling the players movement into certain areas by use of obstacles, we can also control their camera angles without necessarily taking control away from the player. This will force the player to see something important, such as the objective or possible hiding places

Attract the players attention

The Tower is the final destination for the Level, and by using geometry, and later on lighting, we can draw attention where the player is going. This also creates tension, as the player anticipates reaching the destination.

Distracting Guards

By using objects in the environment, the player can distract the guards which is crucial for progression. This makes for more dynamic gameplay in the stealth areas.

The Narrative is Important

This is a very narrative heavy game, so both the gameplay and the level design leaves a lot of space for the narrative to take place. It is important to make the world feel alive and make a sense of history for the player character.

Stealth and Puzzles

The core gameplay of the game is Stealth and Puzzles. The gameplay must feel fun yet challenging, and a way to do this is by having combined Puzzles & Stealth areas, dynamic enemies such as dogs & cats and also having interesting layouts for the stealth areas.

Producer

I was responsible for the day-to-day development and time delivery of the project
Helped the team members coordinate across various departments
Worked closely with the Product Owner, Scrum Master and Leads to define milestones, goals, roadmaps, short-term and long-term sprints
I helped set up sprints and maintain the product backlog for every area of the game
Helped the team members communicate, resolve problems and helped with certain tasks
Was in charge of planning both the development but also playtesting sessions and events
Coordinated reviews and approvals between team members in order to polish the product
In charge of documentation, meetings, hiring talent and different human resources related topics
And it was also my job to make sure we planned, developed and marketed our game for commercial purposes, which was quite difficult as this is our first time doing so

Remaining Contributions

As we had very limited resources and time due to this being a off-school project. It became my duty as Producer to make sure that everything in the project was working correctly. Therefore I took on all QA testing for most parts of this project.

Optimization

I helped the graphical team locate and find a work-around for our Trees and foliage. This was a large issue as we had a lot of overdraw thanks to transparent leafs. I also playtested and found different problems with our Shaders and other parts of the game.