Swamp Fell
Swamp Fell is a game where I worked as lead designer for my third-year game project at Falmouth University. The game is built in Unreal Engine 5 and uses a mix of C++ and Blueprints for its code base.
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My Contributions
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Systems designer: I designed all the game systems excluding the player combat mechanics.
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Level designer: I designed the open-world level and used terrain tools to implement it while working alongside the art team.
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Quest designer: I worked with the writer to design quests.
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Game design documentation: I produced and maintained documentation for the game design for use by the team.
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Prototyping: I built prototypes for many systems using UE5 blueprints such as enemy behaviour and unique quest mechanics.
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Playtesting: I managed regular playtesting sessions recording data for game iteration.
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Scrum Master: I was in charge of managing scrum meetings and worked to ensure a smooth team working environment.
Project Overview
An open-world action RPG where you hack your way through hordes of enemies as you unravel the swamp's mysteries.
Eldritch Light-Hearted
The world is filled with goofy lightheaded characters that juxtapose the dark ascetic making for a unique player experience.
Additive Narrative Via NPC Interaction
The player learns new information via NPC conversation and world interaction, building on past knowledge to construct an overarching narrative.
Hack 'n Slash Combat
Engage in combat against enemies using fast-paced attacks and use strategically timed and positioned abilities to maximize damage dealt.
My Work
Level Design
Fully aware of how ambitious it was to develop an open-world game as a student project I designed the map around being scalable.
Rather than having a single continuous open world, I split the map up into small sections that could be separated through terrain features that blocked the line of sight. This effectively broke the open world up into a collection of smaller more easily designed levels that could exist in isolation from each other.
This was done to allow for flexibility and easy iteration allowing us to avoid changes to one part of the map snowballing into connecting areas. Through this system, I was able to move, remove, and add new areas as needed. Sticking them all together to create the feeling of an open world.
Hybrid Level
Documentation
During the development of SwampFell, I recorded my game design into game design documents to facilitate design communication, iteration, and joint vision.
I chose to use One Page GDDs to do this taking advantage of their visual nature to effectively communicate and explore new designs. Another reason why I chose to use One Page GDDs is because they allowed me to treat the problem of design communication as a UX problem.
One Page GDDs
