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SEAFEUD

ROLE

Level Designer, QA tester

DESCRIPTION

A 3D underwater arcade racer, where the player plays as a futuristic diver as they ride on top of various fish with different abilities to either hinder the enemy or aid the player in a quick getaway. This section will focus on my work on the Express Wave track, making the intro sequence to said track and mentioning testing the metrics of the fish and QA and bug testing.

DEVELOPEMENT TIME

Jan 2023 - May 2023

TEAM SIZE

60 People (17 Level Designers)

GAME ENGINE

Unreal Engine 5.1

GENRE

Arcade Racer

PLATFORM

PC | Steam

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • EXPRESS-WAVE

  • TRACK OPENING SEQUENCE

  • QA & METRICS TESTING

EXPRESS-WAVE

  • Designed the layout and pacing of the track with the team

  • Aided in the initial pass of landscaping

  • In charge of placing fish placement, amount, and balancing

  • In charge of item placement and balancing

  • ​Placed in the checkpoint markers to count the laps and placed respawn points

TRACK OPENING SEQUENCE

  • In charge of creating the intro fly-through camera showcasing the Express-wave track to players

    • Similar to the opening cinematics of a Mario Kart track

  • Used Unreal’s level sequencer and multiple cameras to get dynamic shots of the track

QA & METRICS TESTING

  • Was part of a team who went through and tested each fish’s characteristics and collected data on their values

    • Determining what needed changing and when they seemed balanced

  • Aided in further fish metric balancing throughout the rest of development

  • Did quality assurance on MRT, AI behavior, checkpoints and noted any other game-breaking bugs or minor inconsistencies

    • Recorded bugs and reported them to Jira and Monday.com

WHAT WENT WELL:

  • Working together as a group designing the track from start to finish as a group

  • Working closely with our artists who sat with us and helped communicate assets we needed and helped us make the track look nice and alive

  • Using a combination of post-processing effects, animation, and physics to make the game feel like it’s underwater

  • Making up lost time from ice days, working as a cohort to make giant strides in progress that we lost from weather complications

  • Switching from having the fish move on a spline path to being stationary

  • Using MRT from previous Unreal 4 projects in Unreal 5 to keep the road parts of the tracks modular and adjustable

  • QA: Making recordings and annotated screenshots of bugs and remaining polish items to help tell others where the issues are

EVEN BETTER IF:

  • Putting more emphasis on setting up a sound system early in development

    • And had more than one person working on it

  • If we had more people keeping an eye on Jira and using it more frequently

  • Had more people trying to break the game during playtests to find issues

  • If there was better communication between leads at certain points in development to provide better communication to other disciplines

  • Putting more emphasis on UI and menu flow throughout development

WHAT I LEARNED:

  • How to use Unreal 5.1 and learn its unique features

    • Learned how to use Lumen and its effects on our levels

  • How to set up checkpoints and respawn points using trigger volumes

  • How to communicate past language barriers and discipline barriers more frequently with my teammates

  • How to use Monday.com to keep track of tasks and use it to time how long it takes to do something

  • How to describe and communicate camera shots with leads for the level sequencer

GALLERY

GAMEPLAY VIDEO

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