Working as a Level Designer on a mobile game with 100K+ downloads. Neon Play were kind enough to have me on board for some work experience, I got the opportunity to work on a game called Marine Force: Heroes of War.

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I was tasked with designing up to 15+ new missions/levels for the game. The first three of which had already been designed. The extra challenge was all these missions would be in the same level environment. Which creates a challenge in keeping the missions engaging. Usually in level design I would first establish the intentions and then design the environment based on my goals. For example, in the FPS Ureal Tournament the movement system is designed to be very fast therefore as a level designer you should make sure there are no sharp turns. Meaning the game design and mechanics of the game should always influence level design.

 

So how did I solve this problem, when it came to designing so many missions for the game

and keeping them fresh and interesting, I tried a very logical approach. I identified all the

potential objectives the player could be given and alongside this the types of characters the

player could use. Doing this I was then able to create a basic pattern for objectives and

characters going through all the levels. I then increased the quality of both character types

and objective types needed to complete the mission. This enabled me to have a starting

point when designing a large quantity of missions but knowing for certain that each one

had a slightly different objective and character combination.
 
Below are some screenshots of my planning process and some 2D designs for some of the

missions. To make it clear I only worked as a level designer for a short time on this project, and

I didn't contribute in a technical regard.