HEX RALLY RACERS
ROLE
Landscape Designer, QA Tester
DESCRIPTION
A 3D arcade racer, where the player plays as one of four witches on one of four brooms, flying through magical environments, collecting ingredients to form potions to hinder your opponents. This section will focus on my work on tracks Portobello Pond and Shroom Shire, as well as give a mention to my QA and bug testing.
DEVELOPMENT TIME
Jan 2022 - Apr 2022
TEAM SIZE
60 People (30 Level Designers)
GAME ENGINE
Unreal Engine 4.2
GENRE
Arcade Racer
PLATFORM
PC | Steam
RESPONSIBILITIES
In action shot of player zooming through the air after getting a zoom boost.
A calmer screenshot of player racing through the track at a normal speed.
A top down view of Shroom Shire, showing off the shape of the track.
In action shot of player zooming through the air after getting a zoom boost.
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GRAND PRIX 1: TRACK 1 | PORTOBELLO POND
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GRAND PRIX 2: TRACK 1 | SHROOM SHIRE
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QA & BALANCE TESTING
GRAND PRIX 1: TRACK 1 | PORTOBELLO POND
Gif of the final render of the Portobello Pond opening sequence.
Gif of the opening sequence to Shroom Shire in early stages of development
To help figure out placement of trees, hazards, ramps, plants, and houses, I used a photo editing tool in my phone's gallery to mark out where they'd be placed. Which also helped quickly communicate things to the rest of the team.
Gif of the final render of the Portobello Pond opening sequence.
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Was responsible for placing in the hazards, ramps, and environmental props
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including foliage
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In charge of adjusting the MRT to form banks in the track
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In charge of implementing the ramps and regulating their force
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Designed the layout and pacing of track with the team
GRAND PRIX 2: TRACK 1 | SHROOM SHIRE
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In charge of placing the environmental props to give sense of direction
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Aided in the placement of item pickups
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In charge of implementing the ramps and regulating their force
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Designed the layout and pacing of track with the team
QA & BALANCE TESTING
A gif of us purposefully going into the mushroom hazards to see if the bounce back animation and state works. This was done before we had the witches seen in the final game, hence the blocky blue figure riding the broom.
An early gif of the player riding through the curved bridge in Portobello Pond. This was when we were testing the shape of the track and sightlines of the player; if things needed to be widened or not.
During development, we often ran into the problem of forgetting which pickups affected what broom. Especially since we originally had more pickups than the 4 in the final game. Eventually we shortened it down to 4 and we made the above chart to help keep track of what does what. I also further color-coded it to keep track of similar pickups.
A gif of us purposefully going into the mushroom hazards to see if the bounce back animation and state works. This was done before we had the witches seen in the final game, hence the blocky blue figure riding the broom.
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Was part of the team who went through each broom combination on each track to collect data on their values
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Aided in the final balance of pickup items to the rest of the game
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Did quality assurance in menu flow, trigger boxes, and helped note any game breaking bugs
WHAT WENT WELL:
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Working together as a group and designing the tracks from start to finish as a group
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Keeping close communication with the artist on our team for updates on art assets
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Using Jira to help keep track of tasks throughout each milestone
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QA: Splitting up tasks between each other in terms of documentation
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Keeping recordings of our playtests and having them available for others if big changes occur that were unexpected
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Using MRT to keep the road parts of the track modular and adjustable
EVEN BETTER IF:
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Us Level Designers communicated to the artist what we wanted clearly
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and giving the artist time to make said asset
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If we stuck to using the given assets more, instead of putting pressure on artist to make new assets
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Putting more emphasis on the tutorial and UI elements of the game earlier in the process
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QA: Having an extra person record the playtest sessions in case the main recording becomes corrupted
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as to not loose data
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WHAT I LEARNED:
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How to communicate past language barriers with my teammates
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How to use sub-levels in Unreal 4.2, and MRT
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As well as the importance of using Perforce with Unreal and keeping entries clear for others to keep track of your work
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How to use Jira and log bugs
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As well as the varying ranges of importance in bugs
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How to work in a large team of people with lots of people in the same discipline
