Story: A rescue team is sent to investigate an undersea research facility, but an unseen entity slams the submarine down onto the sea floor. The submarine is split in pieces and the is crew separated, but a lone diver lives and sets out to find survivors. His journey leads him to a discovery of terrible experiments, wildlife exploitations, supernatural phenomena, and a breadcrumb trail left behind by a surviving crewmate. When they finally reunite at the bottom of the sea, they are no longer themselves and decayed beyond human comprehension. 

Tone: The journey drifts between moments of awe, with the wonder and beauty of the ocean relieving you of your isolation, and moments of dread, where every creak and scuttle hints at something monstrous just out of sight.

High Concept: Evade horrific creatures in immersive underwater environments, while finding a way back to safety, all while descending deeper and deeper.

Player Mechanics

• Diving Knife: Cut through obstacles

• UV Blacklight: Shine specific objects to reveal, activate, or burn a component

• Diving: Move verticality and float in underwater areas

• Invisibility: Temporarily camouflage to evade enemies

Inspirations: Our environmental puzzles and structure design was inspired by Breath of the Wild; Enemy encounters were inspired by Predator and Security Breach; The visual design and atmosphere was inspired by Abzu and Soma. Our game story took some inspiration from Pokemon: The First Movie, Avatar, and My Octopus Teacher.

As Game Designer

• Drove overall vision of design goals, pillars, and game direction through weekly scrum meetings.

• Supported the team and made short and long-term planning for design features came from facilitated internal and external cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration between art, design, code, music, and narrative departments.

• Created solutions for department pipelines and adapted to changes during the development cycle quickly and efficiently.

• Documented game plans and design decisions to aid development and also identified design problems and proposed solutions based on playtesting feedback.

As Level Designer

• Concepted, researched, prototyped, whiteboxed, and ideated and successfully shipped different 5 underwater environmental levels

• Designed puzzle elements, encounters, and level flow to emphasize simple, repeatable gameplay mechanics, and vertical movement for navigation and exploration.

• Guided and worked with the design team on the construction and layout of levels for reviews and level passes.

• Ideated levels for game balance, prioritizing player experience and engagement.

Design Choices:  The Vertical Slice featured this level as a large structure with many small, underutilized rooms which confused players. Recognizing these issues, I led a full layout redesign focused on level flow and function. The updated map introduced clear distinctions between the central hub, flooded areas, points of interest, and the critical path.

Level Design Techniques

• Central Hub: All rooms are connected through the same point which gives the player a place to easily return to.

• Problem, Solution Ordering: The layout is designed to always present the obstacle before the player finds the solution in a gated sequential order.

• One-Way Valve: Once the player gets to flooded lower, floor, they cannot go back until they obtain the diving suit upgrade. This is intentional to help players focus by deducting the number of rooms to explore.

• Backtracking: With the suit upgrade, the player is able to return to the top floor and proceed.

• Worldbuilding Anchor: Each room is themed after the type of experiments or research the scientists did.

Results: While revamping the lab was a significant risk, the redesign successfully reimagined the game's scrapped premise and established a unique, engaging atmosphere for players. Some extra additions included worldbuilding elements like experimentation chambers and observation decks overlooking the kelp forest.

Design Choices: Due to scope constraints, we overhauled the mechanics of this encounter to focus on simple environmental interactions to "neutralize" the Eel instead. In our Vertical Slice, players didn't seem to utilize the swimming mechanics despite its advantages and instead players fearfully shimmied around to reach the generators to evade the Eel. To address this, I pitched a revised level layout that moved each generator to a vertical point with various "hidey-holes" between each objective. This encouraged a natural loop of players tracking the Eel’s path and timing when to move from cover to cover to reach each objective. Additionally, based on internal feedback that the blacklight mechanic felt underused, a second phase was reintroduced where players needed to stun the Eel using the blacklight. 

Level Design Techniques

• Compression & Release: Coming out through a tight gap reveals a massive arena.

• Privileged Perspective: The player has space to study the arena safely before jumping in.

• Illuminated Path: All parts of the objective are connected by neon wires.

• Cover-to-Cover Flow: Hidey-holes along the pit's walls make the player feel small, but safe. They are also strategically placed near generators to guide player movement.

• Scripted Event: A backup battery will activate after the player destroys all the generators, forcibly reviving the Eel.

Result: All changes to the arena led to players actively strategizing how they navigated underwater. However, the addition of the second phase ended up with unclear affordance with the blacklight which led to frustrating experience for players. This interaction was later improved in a game balance update where players use the blacklight on a generator instead.

Design Choices: I recognized that the game lacked a dedicated swimming level and pitched this level as a way to utilize the player's ability to explore vertically. I designed a cave system that funneled into a vertical junction, allowing the player to explore an upper and lower tier. In this section, the player practices their spatial awareness as they complete puzzles while swimming (essentially, "mid-air"). The lower tier extends into a dead end with a trap door where the player must utilize what they've learned in the cave and in the previous encounter as an enemy hunts them. The layout of the cage is designed to give the player opportunities to methodically take cover from timed attacks.

Level Design Techniques

• Tension Break: Progression is gated until the player feeds the sleeping Hermit Crab a snack to unblock a path.

• Verticality: The structure of the cave requires players to practice navigating towards puzzle elements at various elevations.

• Foreshadowing: Before entering the fish trap, there will be broken cages and fish bones along the path.

• Silhouetting: The cage environment itself is minimalistic to focus on the trapped Zooplankton which stand out because of the negative space created.

• Compositional Framing: The player only views the Pistol Shrimp from a low angle, highlighting that the Pistol Shrimp is in a privileged position to always track and attack the player.

Result: Players had the right takeaways from what they learned throughout the level's puzzles and structure, but there was an affordance issue with the lack of immediate feedback from completing the objectives during the encounter with the Pistol Shrimp. Overall, players were more comfortable in their directional swimming ability, completing the level's goal.

Design Choices: The prototype ended up not aligning with the intended experience, so I led a revamp of the map to better reflect the stakes in the story and to introduce contrasting areas between Phase 1 and Phase 2; Phase 1's structure provided vertical safe zones from Shrimp Man burrowing underneath, while Phase 2 emphasized mobility and decision making to counter both Shrimp Man and the Pistol Shrimp. Zooplankton are also used as glowing markers to guide the way for the player.

Level Design Techniques

• Thematic Shape: The layout is intentionally designed to be heart-shaped to mirror the current narrative beat and motivate movement for gameplay.

• Verticality: Used to encourage the player to explore safely. Also used for completing puzzle interactions in elevated areas.

• Gradual Complexity: This level has players strategize how they layer their actions and abilities (core mechanics) simultaneously and sequentially.

• Guiding Lights: Zooplankton contrast against the hellish terrain to guide the player.

• Ambush Zone: Walking on the ground could trigger an ambush from Shrimp Man. After entering the fake exit, the Pistol Shrimp will ambush the player.

Result: The player would need to balance their stamina and invisibility usage to overcome this fight but both phases introduced their own challenges:  Player's struggled to complete Phase 1 because the vertical playground blocked important sightlines like the main exit. Conversely, Phase 2 didn't offer enough cover to block attacks. Despite these issues, the entire encounter is thrilling experience and successfully challenged players' mastery of their core mechanics.