Torch Your Way

Was a design elective course at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

The requirement of this course was to design a game with a supported Game Design Document and create a prototype gameplay level for it with a focus on level design.

Tools:

Unity Engine, C#, Blender, Probuilder, Adobe InDesign

Roles:

Everything

Team Size:

Solo

Responsibilities:

Main Tasks

  • Model Environment Props (Except for the Door, Pickaxe & Torch)

  • Level Design

  • Model the cave tunnel level

  • Scripting: Movement, Collectables, SFX, UI functions

  • VFX and crystal shaders

  • UI/UX

  • Game Design Document

Description

In “Torch Your Way“ you play as a hardworking miner from the dwarven race that was trapped behind a mystical door away from his team. He has no clue where this door leads but has no strength to open it and return back. The player soon learns that his side of the door has three missing crystals that are supposed to be gathered around the cave to open the door. However, he also realises that he is not alone in this cave. A mysterious flesh-eating creature has awakened from its slumber, due to someone being present.

Future Iterations

The Monster

Due to the short development time for this project, I have mainly focused on the level design, modeling props, and functions for level completion. My main goal was to give the “negative” emotions to the player of feeling lost, confined space, lack of vision and thought of an unknown presence. The more the player has immersed in the environment the closer I got to my goal.

Without a question, the main protagonist of the game is a must-have requirement to complete the immersion, which is a number one priority for updates.

Detailed game idea explanation is described thoroughly in the Game Design Document

Development Challenge

Focusing mostly on game development, I had a hard time understanding, why would my game lag, even though I have added only a few environment objects to my level design. There is where I learned about model Wireframes and poly count, which gave me more understanding of game optimization for level design.