OVERVIEW

Level Designer - (09/2024 - 02/2025)

GAME DESCRIPTION

The Last Trip is a 2D action-platformer driven by a deep and immersive narrative.

Players take control of Sewel, a troubled protagonist navigating a surreal and psychedelic world, where reality blurs with his inner struggles. To survive, Sewel must harness his unique abilities and make use of powerful drug-based power-ups, each granting distinct combat techniques and traversal methods. As he faces both external foes and internal demons, players will uncover a story filled with emotion, action, and psychological depth.

RESPONSABILITIES

Designed and structured levels to reinforce story-driven gameplay while maintaining player engagement.
Implemented Rational Level Design principles to balance difficulty progression and categorize gameplay beats.
Developed and documented mechanic combinations, ensuring smooth expansions and evolutions of challenges using CCST principles.
Created Gating Sections to validate player mastery, introducing enemy waves as skill-check encounters.
Designed levels that enhance power-ups, integrating them in fresh and meaningful ways to keep gameplay varied.
Balanced environmental hazards and enemy encounters, ensuring fair yet challenging level progression.
Tested and iterated on level layouts, refining mechanics and player flow based on feedback.
Close communication with Programming, Art, and Design teams to iterate on levels and prototype mechanics or environmental art.

CONTRIBUTIONS

My primary responsibility in The Last Trip was to establish a unique gameplay identity while delivering a fun, dynamic, and challenging experience.

As the only Level Designer, I designed, prototyped, and created all the levels for the demo within 6 months. This required me to develop clear workflows and pipelines, ensuring clear communication with the Art Team to integrate level dressing while ensuring we met internal milestones and maintained quality standards.

Beyond level design, I also worked closely with the Design Team, contributing to UI/UX, enemy design, and mechanics development. Additionally, at the early stages of the project, I collaborated with the Programming Team to prototype core mechanics and enemy AI behaviors, ensuring a solid gameplay foundation.

Shaping the Game’s Identity Through Level Design

From the start, The Last Trip had a clear vision, influenced by games like Ori and Cookie Cutter.

However, with a stronger focus on story-driven gameplay and mechanics, it was my responsibility to define the player experience by designing all the playable scenarios.

Through level design, we crafted an engaging experience where each level introduced and enhanced power-ups in fresh and meaningful ways.

Ensuring Player Progression

Every level was designed with a clear purpose, whether it was introducing new mechanics, enemies, or environmental hazards.

To ensure players had mastered essential skills, I implemented Gating Sections—challenging encounters that acted as skill checks. These sections featured enemy waves that players had to defeat to unlock the next path, reinforcing their understanding of the game's mechanics before progressing.

Crafting Levels with Rational Level Design

To ensure a fair and balanced difficulty progression, I applied Rational Level Design to categorize the expected challenge of each gameplay beat.

This approach also allowed me to document the combinations of mechanics used in every section, making it easier to apply CCST (Challenge, Cadence, Skill, Theme) principles.

By doing so, I created expansions and evolutions of previous challenges while keeping the gameplay fresh with new obstacles.

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