Design Director

Game: Man of Medan

Role: Games Designer (Credited as Level Designer)

Genre: Survival Horror & Interactive Drama

Release​: 30th August 2019​

Platform: PS4,  Xbox One, PC​

Engine: Unreal Engine 4

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Description

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​The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of stand-alone, branching cinematic horror games that can also be played online with a friend. Man of Medan is the first game in the anthology, bringing supernatural horror to the South Pacific when five friends set sail on a holiday diving trip that soon changes into something much more sinister.

 

This was my first foray into the Survival Horror genre and whilst my job title was Games Designer, my role was more akin to that of a Level Designer. I joined at the start of production with responsibilities that included iterative whiteboxing based on a Production Design 2D map, scripting levels and gameplay, and creating compelling branching cinematics. For roughly the latter 8 months of the project, I was a Strike Team Lead which meant leading a team of roughly 6-8 people to hyper-focus on specific areas of the project to get reach final quality.

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Responsibilities​

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• Level Design​​

  • Designed and implemented levels from concept through whitebox to final quality, creating compelling scenes and player interactions.

  • Iterated on level design throughout the development to refine gameplay, pacing and champion the player experience.

  • Worked on roughly 80% of the game's levels, but owned 'Abandoned Ship', 'An Escape', 'Revenge', 'Glamor Girl' and 'Junior'.

  • Collaborated within multidisciplinary teams to bring levels through to final quality.

• Visual Scripting

  • Scripted gameplay, events and branching sequences using a proprietary visual scripting language.

  • Created and templated nested state machines to support the implementation and reuse of gameplay all of which adhered to multiplayer requirements.

  • Worked with meta-game systems to set up achievements, collectables, relationships and traits.

• Cinematic Design

  • Implementing mocap animation and VO audio in sequences across the game.

  • Created well-paced cinematic sequences ensuring it had a polished layout, good quality composition and strong overall cinematography.​

  • Supported subtitles and localisation efforts.

• Mechanics and Systems

  • Collaborated closely with engineering and technical animation to develop a dynamic 'Push' system. This would allow the player character to be placed within a sequence when walking towards one of the villains, they would then be physically pushed and redirected back onto the critical path within said sequence.

  • Created and maintained associated design documentation covering the functionality of the system and implementation steps.

  • Balanced gameplay and meta-game systems across the project.​

• Design Leadership

  • Led a multidisciplinary Strike Team of 8 developers to deliver core levels of the projects to shippable quality.

  • Provided technical mentorship to designers, supporting the development of content and levels across the game.

  • Worked closely with the Game Director during daily iteration reviews to push quality.