Snowpainters

Download on Steam

Project Overview

Engine: Unreal 4

Team Size: 40 (10 Level Designers)

Development Time: 4 Months

As one of ten level designers of a forty person team, I acted as the principal designer of the tutorial track, designing how to teach players how to play our game, writing all tutorial text, and playtesting and adjusting the level according to playtester and stakeholder feedback. I also helped plan the initial design of Track 2 and assisted in placing art proxies in order to help alleviate the strain of the eight artists on the team.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Acted as principal designer for “Tutorial” track, undertaking initial design, implementation, balancing, and bug fixing.

• Designed and implemented assets for “Track 2: Ice Caves” track with strike team of three designers.

• Wrote and implemented tutorial text prompts for Tutorial Level.

• Researched and presented track building methods for an arcade kart racing game.

Track Design

As a level designer, my main job was to help design and implement the tracks under the direction of both the Lead LD and Game Designer. Early in the project, the 10 level designers researched both Mario Kart 8 and Crash Team Racing to learn how to design good, fun tracks. From there, we went into the paper prototype stage, getting our hands dirty on designing for a kart racer.

Once we felt we had a good understanding of the genre, we began creating paper maps and reviewing as an Level Design team. Each track went through several iterations and ideas as we explored what would make it fun and how to best use the mechanics given to us by the Game Designer.

Track Implementation

One of the challenges the Snowpainters team faced was the low number of artists for our project (eight in total). As such, Level Designers were tasked with setting up props and aesthetic elements as well as the track as a “first pass” for artists to refine later. I enjoy environmental storytelling, so I took up the task for Track 2.

My initial block-out for the “Sushi Stand” landmark in Track 2

Final implementation of “Sushi Stand” landmark in Track 2

My initial block-out for the starting line of Track 2

Final implementation for the starting line of Track 2

Late in development and after strenuous playtesting, it became evident that a tutorial level of some kind would be beneficial to help players understand the unique mechanics of Snowpainters. Team-wide playtests also found getting off the track by accident and sliding around the terrain was also really fun and enjoyable.

I was put on a strike team with two designers tasked with creating a tutorial track that could teach players our mechanics while also allowing them to explore a “playground” where they could play on the terrain as much as they wanted.

First, we created a paper map with a tutorial area where players could watch AI modeling the mechanics before opening it up to the player. We implemented it in engine immediately but found our AI would could not support multiple tracks. I prototyped having pop-up boxes appear as players slid through trigger boxes explaining the mechanic. This worked well with playtesters because I made sure to slowly introduce players to mechanics before setting them off in the playground to freely explore.

Goal: Teach players about the color change mechanic

1. Put plenty of paint puddles so players can change multiple times

2. Text is simple to understand

Goal: Teach players about the boost

1. Put after paint puddles so meter would be full

2. Put plenty of paint cans nearby to fill in boost

3. Give open mostly straight place for players to boost first time

Goal: Teach players about sick tricks

1. Put in enticing ramp at end so players can do sick trick easily

2. Plenty of paint cans leading to ramp to allow players to boost to ramp

3. Flat open area to land in after doing trick

Goal: Teach players how to use items

1. Row of boxes that are hard to miss

2. Random items just like in game - player has equal chance to get any of the items

3. Allows them time to see how UI changes as result of items

Goal: Teach players how to drift

1. Create soft, sloping curve so it is easy for player to drift into

2. Particles let players know they were successful.

Goal: Teach players about snowmen

1. Player must actively maneuver away to miss snowmen

2. Plenty of cans available nearby so they can start zooming again if they hit them.

Goal: Show players how to refill boost

1. Create a field of paint cans so they can run into most of them and immediately refill bar

2. See how UI changes when meter goes up (reinforcing what they should have already observed).

After this, the player is allowed to go and explore the terrain. If they go through the tutorial area again, the pop-ups will remind them of the controls.

Within the tutorial level, I left my “mark” - two fox heads with paint in the middle. My goal is to leave a fox in every level I help develop/implement.

Is there a fox somewhere? Rebecca worked on that level :)

What Went Well?

• We published! We created a game in about four months that will be published on Steam despite COVID protocols and an once in a decade snowstorm. This really shows our ability to do great work under pressure.

• Strike Teams - Working on different strike teams allowed us to refine and polish our different tracks effectively and stomp out any bugs that popped up.

What Went Wrong?

• Pipeline/Communication Issues - Sometimes pipelines got mixed up, creating some communication issues and having to redo work. It improved a lot by the end of the project.

Even Better If/What I Learned

• Pipelines/Communication - Communications and pipelines are one of the most important parts of a project and needs to be ironed out early and constantly revisited. This helps with team harmony and productivity.

• Organization - Setting up good organization structures and sticking to them in a project are key. It is easy to not remember to re-name things in the heat of the moment, but keeping everyone organized and on the same page helps save a lot of time.

• Polishing - Polishing a game from 80% done to 90%, 95%, and launch is much more difficult than anyone realizes. To get from good to great takes a lot of time, tears, and a critical eye.