Professional Experience

Eclipse is a first-person exploration game set on a sentient planet with a dark past. At its core is a mysterious story of a world filled with discovery and wonder. Created and released in 2017 and made in 6 months with 4 developers at White Elk Studios.

My responsibilities included management of asset lists (particle effects, music stems, sound effects, 3D models), audio scripting, gameplay scripting, level design, puzzle design, usability, and scene management to increase performance for mobile virtual reality.

The game received the following recognitions and was eventually ported to other devices like the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Level Design & Documentation

Below I decided to include some level design documentation for a level to show my design skills and how I tie together setting and story. In this level you play as Lancelot trying to save King Arthur by helping him escape from the kingdom that he once ruled (more details provided below). 

This level was just made as a design exercise to show my skills as a level designer.

Story

After King Arthur has successfully watched over the Kingdom of Camelot for many years all of his followers now consider him to be one of the greatest kings of all time. By experiencing so much success and conquering many kingdoms King Arthur forgot to keep the promise he made to the Lady of the Lake. Upon receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake King Arthur agreed that after 4 years he would marry her. Now that King Arthur has forgotten his promise the Lady of the Lake is angry and has come to kill King Arthur. 

Using the statue of King Arthur to magnify her magic the Lady of the Lake has now enchanted the Kingdom of Camelot to make herself stronger. She has now stormed into the castle to drag King Arthur to the Town Square and drown him in the fountain where his statue stands. To make it worse she is making all of the towns people watch the execution of their king. 

The level starts as she storms into the castle to take King Arthur. The beginning cutscene shows Lancelot (the player) trying to stop her. As a result she blasts the floor with a magic blast causing Lancelot to fall into castle’s underground dungeon. It is up to the Lancelot (the player) to save King Arthur from the Lady of the Lake.

Level Objective

  • Save King Arthur from his execution
  • Escape from the city
  • Destroy the statue of King Arthur (the power source for Lady of the Lake)

List of Mechanics Used

Attacks :

  • Melee Attack – Sword
  • Projectile Attack – Bow & Arrow

Navigation :

  • Jump – The player can jump 2m.
  • Swim – The player can swim underwater for X amount of time.
  • Moveable Objects – The player and AI can move these objects.
  • Lever – A simple switch.
  • Crank – Rotate to drive an animation on an object.
  • Ledge Grab – Player is able to hang from ledges with their arms. Once hanging from the ledge player can get up only if they are under a space with an open area such as a platform or window.

List of Enemies Used :

  • Merlin – A quick to medium range enemy.
    • Fire Beam Attack – Increased damage over time.  Lights player on fire after X seconds.
  • Archers – A long range projectile based enemy.
    • Arrow Attack – A basic projectile attack.
  • Grunt – A short range melee base enemy.
    • Sword Attack – A basic attack.
  • Troll – A slow and short/medium ranged melee based enemy.
    • Club Attack – A powerful AOE attack.

Level Documentation (ordered left to right)

Design Process : 

I started out designing the level by drawing out the overall map. As I was designing the overall map I was creating  narrative moments in the level that would direct the player to the exit of the city. I knew when I started creating the level that it was going to be a rescue type of mission. I wanted the player to have a destination that they were working towards to so I decided to use the statue of King Arthur as a landmark. At the beginning of the level the  player could see that statue from the castle since the castle overlooks the entire Kingdom of Camelot. Once I figured out the outside play spaces of the level I was able to create buildings linking them for better flow and used the buildings as opportunities to present more enemy types. Throughout the entire design of the level I was focusing on  different obstacles  and pacing the player would be experiencing.

Music and Spatial Audio

In addition to doing game design and development tasks I am also interested in audio implementation. On Eclipse: Edge of Light I spearheaded audio implementation and took on the role of managing the sound assets and scripting the music manager.

I have also used Wwise in the past to learn more about official sound implementation. But don’t really find it useful for small personal projects and prototypes. We didn’t use Google’s VR audio plugin during development because it created artifacts during scene transitions. So we stuck to Unity’s basic audio features. I made scripts for audio mixer snapshots which allowed the sound designer to adjust settings for different areas though.

I enjoyed the process of positioning sounds in Virtual Reality and timing all the music transitions as the player would progress through the level. I got my Pro Tools Dolby Atmos certification (2023) so I am always trying to up production skills. Here are snippets I have made for fun (not dolby atmos).

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Parkour Prototype (in Progress)

In order to keep my skills up to date I decided to work on a First Person Parkour game. This project is a work in progress and I will continually add to it as I have time, for now it is just a hobby project consisting of a FPS parkour character controller and some basic enemies on a navmesh.

I personally like parkour games and some of my favorite games include Titantfall 1 & 2, Refunct (Indie Game), Mirrors Edge, and the slinging in Spiderman (Insomniac Games).

Main Mechanics :

  • Laser Gun – Just a simple laser gun for shooting enemies ( with no kickback).
    • Use Cases : Can be used to shoot enemies, and activate/short circuit doors.
  • Super Fist – Secret weapon player steals that allows them to punch. The punch acts like Thor’s hammer launching the player if there is no target.
    • Use Cases : Can be used to defeat larger enemies and advanced parkour maneuvers (punch in the air to start a wall run).
  • Parkour – Standard parkour abilities that the player has (wall running, jumping, vaulting, and sliding if on a slope). 
    • Use Cases : Basic navigation to get through different parts of the level.

Student Game Design Portfolio

This was my student game design portfolio video when I graduated Digipen Institute of Techology.

What helped me land my first job as a game designer was my final senior project called “FIELDS”. It was a first person puzzle game that I developed as a solo project. 

It demonstrated my level design and puzzle design skills enough for me to get the opportunity to work on Eclipse: Edge of Light.