Sielu
Roles
Level design & Scrum master
Team size
8 people
Time
4 weeks, Fall 2023
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
CONTENT
Concept
Sielu is a Third-Person soulslike where the player traverses through memories and have to fight of the emotions from big events in their life.
We wanted to tell a story through snippets of memories and the player gets to fill in the gaps.
Contribution
Level Design
Level blockout, Level art & Level scripting
Scrum Master
Daily stand ups & task managing
Level Design
I was one of two level designers in this game. We knew we wanted to have four different stages of the game so we decided we would each take two and do them from start to finish.
Research
Like any other game I started with doing research on similar games to ours. I started by looking for scale and pacing. I took inspiration from soulslike as we wanted a slower paced game. But then surreal art as it was set in a dream world.
Second iteration
After the first playable I made a new blockout with the feedback I got but also because we changed how the rooms were set up. The backtracking was removed and all levels were isolated.
After the player beats the level they gets teleported back to the hub. I designed it this way to metaphor life, you can't go back in life and have to move forward. Having backtracking removes that feeling.
Blockout & itereations
After researching I did not have a lot of time to make a map since the first playable was due in 2 days. I did a blockout to try out the mechanics we have and to give me some inspiration for the future.
Feedback I got was:
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Camera klipping into walls and disorienting.
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Solved by having open areas and fewer tight corridors
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Unclear what each area was.
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Solved by focusing on one setting instead of four different which was the first idea.
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Level Art
We didn't have any artist for this project. With a limited budget I looked for assets that were realistic and then work with lighting and effects to make it seem more surreal and dreamy.
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Things I kept in mind when dressing was making things feel foggy and unclear since it is a memory and details can be hard to remember. Things might seem bigger than they were.
VFX & Lighting
The lighting is complete darkness with the light in the memory to focus on the playable area and to make the player feel like they are in a void.
I created a simple VFX to enforce the mind fog and mysteriousness of what goes on beyond it. It helped to seperate the realistic textures and assets
Level Scripting
To guide the player forwards but also to keep the mystery I created scripted events.
Progressing
To lead the player forward when they clear a area I reveal the next section to lead them forward. I used level blueprints to keep it local and simple.
Boss fight transition
In the last level there is a boss fight where when the boss goes down to 50% the floor breaks and the player enters a new arena and the second stage.
For the boss I worked with the programmers and created custom events, and called the event over to the floor to break when the boss enters 50%.
Scrum Master
In this game I wasn't just a level designer I was also the scrum master, helping the PO and the team work towards the same goal together.
Stand ups
Every morning I held a stand up where each member would quickly go through what they did the day before and what they would do today.
Each week I also had a sprint review and sprint planing. Talking to the team to see what they thought we should do and were missing.
Task managing
One of my tasks was manaing task using Jira. Each week I planned the upcoming week and made a clear goal of what should be done.
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Then I created tasks and kept track that people had something to work on, and encouraged everyone to fill in with tasks of their own.
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The Jira board helped to keep us on track and not to overscope but also to see what we were missing.
What I Learned
Sielu was the last game project at FutureGames were I used everything I learned, but I still improved and found new things I can improve.
Adaptability
Since we did not have any artist in this project I had to learn to adapt and be creative with what art I had access to. I found smart ways to work around it with lighting.
Ownership
In this project there were limited teacher and industri help and mentoring. We had to run the playtest by our selfs which helped me take responsibility and ownership of what I wanted to get out of the playtest and the game in general.