Jordan Barrott | Jessica Blask | William Burke | Melvin Cotto-Cotto | Azaan Daniel | James Davis | Jack Galeassi | Nicholas Kaczor | Moses Kim | Nikolai Laue

Level Design/Technical Art

Yunoia

Yunoia, created by Prismatic Studios, is a third-person 2.5D puzzle platformer with fantasy adventure elements. Due to the nature of the agile production process, each step was separated by a sprint. Below goes over each one and lists out what tasks I completed.

Zachary Medei | Jonathan Murray | Logan Ogles | Jonathan Platon | Cristian del Real | Kelcie Rushing | Riki Russell | Skyler Swagert | Marcus Werner

Sprint 01

Design Phase

The first step in this process was building up our teams, understanding our roles, and beginning to document what we were going to create. Outside of being on the Design Team, I was chosen to be part of the Narrative Team due to my experience with creative writing. The first order of business was establishing the narrative and how that was going to relate to gameplay. Our vision holder, Jack Galeassi, did a great job in pitching the initial storyline, but it was up to all of us in turning this story into a full-on interactive experience. This would become one of the most important aspects of our development as this not only dictated what mechanics were going to be in the game but also what art assets and aesthetics we wanted to capture within each level.

The tasks I completed during this sprint were creating a summary of the narrative that was used in our Game Design Document (GDD), working alongside the Narrative Team on what our two unique mechanics were going to be, and creating a level blueprint for one of our game stages. Before I go any further, it's important to understand that this game was about the five stages of grief. Each level was meant to resemble each stage of grief, hence why some of the documents listed throughout this page will have words like "Depression" or "Anger". Later down the line, we would create actual level names, but until then our team just referred to each level by its stage of grief. If you wish to view one of my earlier level blueprints, please check the document on the left and for the summary, the finalized version is listed below.

"You play as Iris, a light spirit who tends to her beloved lighthouse. The central landmark, that colors the world wherever the light touches. However, one day, formless darkness comes in from the sky, taking over the precious lighthouse. Not only striping vibrant color away from this world but transforming this beacon of light into an intimidating panopticon. However, there is still hope as the three prismatic colors: red, green, and blue; fled from the lighthouse to different corners of the desaturated world. Only you can traverse through these diverse landscapes and collect all the colors to bring them back to the panopticon. Hopefully, reverting this monstrous structure to its former glory."

Sprint 02

Prototype Phase

This sprint was all about bringing our ideas into the game engine. Any art assets we wanted to share, and any mechanics we needed input onto were all placed within these prototypes. My tasks were as follows...

Create an art museum level, organizing and labeling each art asset and particle system.
Design one of the puzzles that would be used within the mechanic prototype.
Develop an initial art asset list for the Bargaining level (Click here to view the asset list).
Keep working with the Narrative Team in detailing each story beat of our game.

To view the three main mechanics from the gameplay prototype, please watch the small edit on the left side (brought to you by our Marketing Lead, Skyler Swagart). To see what I completed throughout this sprint, please click here.

Sprint 03

Integration Phase

After Sprint 2, we realized we had a lot to work on when it came to our production pipeline and team-to-team communication. Specifically, our asset lists for Art Team needed to be more organized and have sections for each task to be checked off at completion (Click here if you wish to view my updated asset list). Since we were getting close to the end of our term, we had to lock down on some ideas to be put into the Vertical Slice. My tasks were working with the Narrative Team in finalizing the cutscenes, finishing white-boxing the vertical slice, and learning how to implement post-processing (Click here to view the research document). This involved much documentation, both written and recorded for reference. To view the recorded documentation, check out the video at the bottom of this section.

Sprint 04

Vertical Slice

This was the last sprint before we all went on Winter Break. My tasks for this sprint were strictly post-processing. That included lighting, changing materials into toon shaders, and adding separate volumes for each room. Luckily I had a good amount of time to do this because I learned a valuable lesson during this sprint. Do not add post-processing effects until it is one of the last things that needs to be added and make sure everyone within a shared server installs the same package. This required me to create a video on how each person going into the project can re-add the post-processing effects back in-engine if they disappeared.

Just like before, if you want to see the lovely gameplay video edit for our Vertical Slice by Skyler Swagart, that will be on the left side Any work I completed, you can find the video here.

Sprint 05

Review Phase

This was the first sprint into the new year and was focused on learning what worked last term and what could be better. Finding issues within our team, our story, and most importantly our game. We took this time to reevaluate our tasks and how we were going to turn a one-level game into five stages including a hub. Our Design Lead decided it was best for each stage to be tackled by two designers. The stage I was tasked with was Depression with a fellow level/UI designer, Melvin Cotto Cotto.

After the good reception we received from our Vertical Slice, we decided to redo our level blueprints for each stage to better fit our current layout. Within my duo, we each designed a separate level blueprint for Depression (located on the top left of this section). For my level blueprint, each numbered critical path goes as follows:

Iris walks through a Zen garden filled with dead plants and muted colors, specifically blues. The only thing that shines with vibrant blues is the koi pond, which will entice the player to interact.
On interaction, Iris will fall through the koi pond and land at the bottom of the ocean. Sad and alone, she gives up hope of escaping until small koi fish swim around her giving her a chance to grapple.
Iris will “fish taxi” to the next level, where he will be surrounded by shipwrecks. This will move to the first puzzle section using the modified blue ability.
Past the first puzzle section, Iris will use an environmental interaction to move up the next level which will be filled with vibrant coral reefs. This will move on to the second puzzle section with the inclusion of bounce pads.
Moving past the last puzzle section, Iris will meet with the big koi fish that will move them back up onto the Zen garden.
The Zen garden will now be filled with vibrant blues and live plants. The koi pond is no longer interactable.

We also came up with our own puzzle ideas that we would share during our weekly meeting. The ones I came up with are on pages 4 - 10. After completing this task, we would pick and choose from each of our ideas, combining them together to create the newly white-boxed level. The level was nowhere close to being perfect but was a great starting point for what we had planned.

As for the narrative, we had to lower our scope to give us more time to prioritize other tasks. That meant cutting our opening and closing in-game animatic cutscenes, cutting some of our puzzle ideas, and cutting our restored/upgraded mechanic storyline. Lastly, we made the big decision to switch our render pipeline from the built-in option to the Universal Render Pipeline (URP). Along with many of the changes that came with this switch, the one I had to focus on was the post-processing and toon shading. One thing I know for sure after this sprint is the importance of adapting to ever-changing situations, especially for the betterment of the team.

Sprint 06

Production Phase

This was probably one of the tougher sprints I've been a part of. Many of the decisions made during this time would move the trajectory of everyone's tasks and overall focus for this game. Specifically for me, where I was originally tasked to only focus on Depression, I had to turn my attention to redesigning the Bargaining level. This meant updating the asset list, building the stage from the ground up (using the past iterations as a reference), and creating new puzzles on the spot.

Essentially due to time constraints and creative differences, this level had to be remade in quick succession to make up for lost time. Along with this redesign, we all had to start on asset integration. Taking the assets the Art Team has created and putting them into the levels. Any assets that weren't made were listed in the new art asset list (To view the new one I created for Depression, please click here). While this was happening, I would come in from the back end to switch out each new asset material into a toon shader. A toon shader that works with URP as well as finding a good water shader that matches our aesthetic. Not to mention, the entire Narrative Team was tasked with creating engaging dialogue and finding inspirational quotes to be shown during lose states (To view my document, please click here).

To view the final edit for this sprint by Skyler Swagart, that will be located at the top left. See the new level blueprint for Bargaining located in the middle right section. Finally, you can find the new URP post-processing showcase video on the bottom right.

Sprint 07

Post Production Phase

This sprint was all about adjustments and finalizing iterations. I did not mention this before, but each sprint includes playtesting from our team members, other teams within the same course, and from a separate course that teaches how to properly QA test. We would take their notes and try to fix any bugs and/or add some quality-of-life elements to make the game more user-friendly.

My tasks focused on fixing any design errors for Bargaining, creating animation controllers, continuing to switch new asset materials into toon shaders, and finalizing our narrative dialogue. The animation controllers I created were for the player (Iris), NPCs (Koi, Faceless, and Moose), and enemy (Eres).

Sprint 08

Alpha Release

Now comes the fun part, actually finishing the game. Now that Bargaining is fully redesigned, it was given back to the original duo to set dress and complete asset integration. Since most of the toon shading and animations were close to completion, this gave me more time to focus on other tasks. One that needed to be finished was set dressing our tutorial level, Denial. Utilizing the Vertical Slice as a reference, I completed the asset integration for that level as well as created the ending simulation that would transition the player from the tutorial level into the hub. To view the process for this last room transitional simulation, please direct your attention to the four images in the middle right section.

Speaking of transitions, I was also tasked with creating loading screens. This was a collaborative effort between Jonathan Platon, Skyler Swagart, and me to create two loading screens. One for the Denial level to the Hub transition and the other for the Hub to the final level (Acceptance) transition. Any new animations created by Kelcie Rushing went through me to set up the controller and were turned over to William Burke (programmer) to be played within the game. As for the Narrative Team, our job was complete. The last task was to review our finalized narrative document created by our Narrative Lead, Jack Galeassi. If you wish to view the document, it is located at the bottom right.

Now that we are reaching down the line, the funny edits are now devlogs brought to you by our Creative Director, Jonathan Murray. These cover any changes made from the last sprint with informative narration. To view this, the video is located at the top right of this section.

Test 01 - Glass Break

First, take the stained-glass model. Leave one model whole and cut the other one up in Maya. Import both models into Unity and create a custom breakable script. Use the new script to have the whole model break into rigid body pieces on collision with a rigid body ball.

Test 02 - Glass Break

Have the same test as before but have the stained-glass standing up.

Test 03 - Glass Break

Transfer files from test folder over to the shared server. Add the toon-shaded material onto both stained-glass models. Set up a collision system.

Test 04 - Glass Break

Set up a trigger box to activate collision system and deactivate the invisible wall to have the pieces come out to the camera.

Sprint 09

Polish & Final Release

The final step before release. Finishing the last of my animation controllers, toon shading, post-processing, and any other finishing touches noted by our QA Lead, William Burke. For the post-processing, I would like to provide the description I gave to our Art Lead, Jessica Blask, for the Art Style Guide (ASG).

"For this project, our focus was color. Each stage has its own color and with that, carries its own personality. Post-processing was the most important aspect to accomplish this goal. For the 'Veil of Illusions' level, we narratively wanted this stage to look like a false paradise. Increasing the saturation, adding a bloom effect onto the lights, and upping the color curves to the max to make the space look perfect. Almost too perfect, until you reach the end where the player is “shocked” by the reality of this new monochromatic world. Things like adding a vignette, desaturating the colors, and increasing the contrast make this switch more impactful to the game’s narrative. Skipping all the way to the last level, 'Complementary' was much simpler as the focus was no longer on color, but looking towards the light. No bloom, no saturation, just a small yellow color tint to contrast with the purple aesthetic within the level.

For the hub stage and the rest of the three levels, colors were very important to capture. With the hub specifically, the player starts off desaturated. However, after completing each stage, no matter the order, it will add color back into the world. For 'Embers in Autumn', the stage is bathed in red making the forest fires feel hot and relaying to the player to use the pulse ability more. The 'Thorns of Remorse' is a grainy, vintage level with a green in-camera effect to make the corrupted root and spores look more poisonous. Finally, 'Cerulean Abyss' is three volumes stacked on top of each other that increase in saturation and lowers in contrast as the player moves up from the bottom. The blue in this level makes the player feel like they’re underwater and follows the same pattern of a deep sea. At each stage completion, the hub activates another color volume that can produce color combinations, like cyan, purple, or yellow depending on which levels the player completes first."