DEAD ISLAND 2
01/18 - 03/23 // LEVEL-DESIGNER // DEEP SILVER DAMBUSTER STUDIOS // UNREAL ENGINE 4
MAIN QUESTS, WORLD-BUILDING AND OPEN-WORLD CONTENT

Ideation and whiteboxing in collaboration with narrative and Art team of main and side missions, open-world levels and a HUB

For Alpha until Beta, main missions and related content got owned by senior Level-Designers (LD). I kept assisting them closely with feedback and in their absence with content development and being the point of contact. Post Beta I maintained designs and fixed bugs

Filled levels with open-world content like loot rooms, treasures, special zombie encounters, journal discoveries, gameplay hazards and side quests

Example: Venice Beach Level

• Side missions & open-world content (Whitebox to Alpha)

• Level layout (early Whitebox in collaboration with other LD)

Example: Ocean Avenue Level

• Main mission & HUB development (Whitebox & post Beta - Release)

• Level layout (Whitebox - Release in collaboration with other LDs)

• Open-world content & most side quests (Whitebox - Release)

SIDE QUESTS

I was owner of various side and tertiary content from start to finish

Throughout development, I also took on side-missions to elevate their strengths and efficiently completed them to schedule, while maintaining the requirements of all stakeholders and project core pillars

10 of these quests made it into the released game:

MISSING: GREG

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

SCOOPED!

CREMAINS OF THE DAY

ORGAN DONOR

DIARIES OF THE DEAD

RED TIDE

LENDING A HAND

IT CAME FROM MONARCH STUDIOS

THE TERROR OF SOUND STAGE 7

Example: Missing Person: Greg (Ocean Avenue)
Featuring putrefied Slobber mines and horror mood
Example: Lending a Hand (Ocean Avenue)
Featuring smelly carriable bag (unique carry gameplay affecting combat)
Example: Scooped (Ocean Avenue)
Focus on unsettling mood (slow pacing and using encounters only for high intensity beats)
COLLABORATION ON SYSTEMIC FEATURES

Worked with Code and Tech-Design (TD) departments on development of systemic features like: Friendly AI patrol and tool for sequenced enemy spawning used for all scripted encounters

Open-world emergent system: Worked with Code/TD to establish best practises, shared info with team and setup and ensured consistency across levels and ensured consistency till release through permanent bug-reporting

Loot system: Worked with Art, Game-Design (GD) and TD to establish best usage rules, filled three exemplary levels with loot. Wrote documentation and ensured consistency across levels through feed-back and guidance of other LDs

Carriable zombie lure bags: For variation of melee-combat I pushed for development of a carriable gameplay-type that acts as a zombie lure. Prototyped a variation that uses sound to sporadically alert zombies. Worked with TD/Code on their creation and built two quests with them. The system was used heavily for DLC1

Example: Organ Donor (Venice Beach)

• Example-quest for unlinear gameplay and spawning of quest related AI within open-world

• "Strong men" encounter used to test and refine sequenced enemy spawning tool

 

Example: It came from Monarch Studios (Monarch Studios)

• Featuring noisy carriable bag (unique variant of carryable with a funny twist)

• The "carry gameplay" has been used extensively in the first expansion of Dead Island 2 after prooving to provide necessary variety to combat experience

GAME-CLOSURE

Temporary full-time QA support for one month due to limited QA manpower. Tested and reported bugs

For the last half year I was in a three members team to deliver performance optimisation, bug-fixes and systemic updates throughout the whole game. Continued to support QA closely

LD PIPELINE

Improvements for LD pipeline: standardised documentation and made templates; Wrote editor tools and LD workflow guides for new starters; and organised improvements for accessibility and efficiency of LD tools

Assisted recruitment process (interviews, LD tests)