FREEZING
FRICTION
FAST-PACED THIRD PERSON SHOOTER where you SKATE and GRAPPLE through icy caverns to unleash fire on MASSIVE WORMS and their spawn.
CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP
GRAPPLE
SLASH & SHOOT
SLIDE
PILLARS
Mechanical Mastery
High Octane
Massive Enemy
Created all main levels in the game
I designed and developed the primary level of the game, focusing on its core gameplay experience and mechanics.
As the original concept of Freezing Friction, was to evolve around skating. Slowly, the concept evolved to be about skating underground. As the concept expanded, so did the narrative. At the time, skating, to me seemed like it needed circular design flow in the map. Skating should feel natural, smooth and flowy. As such I researched different sport arenas, from Roller Derby’s to Horse Track Racing. I also did extensive research regarding cave, specifically sea caves and glaciers, as they had the sort of rock formation that we were looking for. They also seemed to promote player interactions through holes and pillar formations.
MODULAR KIT
We had decided that it would be in our best efforts, to make a modular toolkit for this project, as it would simplify the pipeline between Level Designers & Artists, it would also increase the efficacy of both disciplines.
LEVEL INGREDIENTS
The original idea that I had realised, was that we could combine ice skates, with the elements of a skatepark. Such as bowls and ramps.
To maximise time among other things, we decided to thrash the idea of custom made skatepark elements and instead used the landscaping tools to create a landscape containing a variety of hills, and the primary hand placed assets would be pillars and stalagmites.
Constant communication between disciplines was required, as 3Cs were in a constant flux, sizes and assets had to be adjusted ever so slightly. This was of course also of the utmost importance due to iterations.
FINDING THE FUN
One of the most challenging parts of this project, was primarily the finding the juice and the fun, that players were looking for.
Playtests
As this project had originally started in a smaller group and in the previous block of the year, there already had been quite a few playtests and identification to what players had enjoyed the most about the game, which was the GRAPPLE as well as excelling yourself forward. Having playtest data inform the level, was a crucial stepping stone in this project.
Gym Experimentation
As the fun of the game, had been identified. I started going into my gym, and playing around with different setups, finding niche tricks or way thats the player could utilize the grapple. This also included adjusting the path of the primary enemy of the game, and to see what path players enjoyed depending on the kind of map.
Gyms
As the 3Cs and player mechanics were being designed and developed. It was up to me, to find the metrics and to see what was fun. To do this, I made a multitude of gyms, which allowed me to find the fun and ensure that the player experience was met.
Level Metrics
As this project had originally started in a smaller group and in the previous block of the year, there already had been quite a few playtests and identification to what players had enjoyed the most about the game, which was the GRAPPLE as well as excelling yourself forward. Having gathered playtesting data, it was clear what the level should include. As such, I experimented with how the grapple interacted with a variety of objects, widths and heights. As well as playing the game often enough, for me to develop my own ‘movement tech’ that could be applied. Through lots of experimentation, I developed level metrics that were able to be used by beginners but also advanced players.
Designed and created terrain and
player interactions
Terrain and player interactions were designed in a way to fit the player experience, and go align with the player mechanics present in the game.
The terrain was designed to ensure that the player experience was kept, skating through icy caverns. As such the terrain needed to be smooth, and not interrupt the skating of the player. Moreover, the terrain could be designed in a way, where certain hills ‘interlinked’ with one another, creating interaction between hills, which the player could utilize. Moreover, I added pillars and stalagmites to the map. The pillar meant to encourage quick turning, as the player could utilize the GRAPPLE and turn around the pillar. The stalagmites would instead encourage the player to reach higher ground, and maintain that. These 3 interactions could be chained in one succession, allowing the player to make use of their creativity and imagination and move around the level as they saw fit.
Closing Thoughts
This project being my 2nd Level Design project and it being one of the 1st projects where communication between disciplines was highlighted. Which I struggled the most with, especially informing the environment artists. It seemed easy on paper, but in practise, it is difficult to know what to tell the artists and give the green light to make a specific asset, as it might waste more time than expected. Fortunately, I had a very capable team, and I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished together.
My largest regret in this project, is to not have believed in myself more, and had kept too many possible maps in my gym instead of proposing a solution that would allow multiple maps in game, such as a timed sequence.