Electric Eden

(SCAD Pro Production)

Electric Eden was voted for and created by our Pro Production class. It is an single-player action platformer game which focuses on a mysterious narrative and explorative gameplay. I worked on the level design, level concept, environment art, blueprinting, and production management.

The project concept artist Lia didn't quite understand the space or the art direction of the game. To help her I blocked out a space and sat with her while she painted to get a better understanding of our art direction.

The project concept artist Lia didn't quite understand the space or the art direction of the game. To help her I blocked out a space and sat with her while she painted to get a better understanding of our art direction.

Once she had created a detailed draw-over of the blockout we went over the colors and continued working until we had our final result.

Once she had created a detailed draw-over of the blockout we went over the colors and continued working until we had our final result.

When the final paintover was done we created a presentation with pieces cut out so that our environment art team could start working. To be honest though, the environment art team ended up being just Lia and I. We were dating at the time and it just

When the final paintover was done we created a presentation with pieces cut out so that our environment art team could start working. To be honest though, the environment art team ended up being just Lia and I. We were dating at the time and it just worked out for our schedules (staying up until 4am working). The other environment artists during the project kind of just up and vanished for the most part. I have to give credit where credit is due though. Lucas Carbone did a lot to learn proper topology in just 10 weeks and it was very endearing to see his growth! He's a great guy with lots of potential!

I did a few drawings (would you believe me if I said this was in MSpaint and my mouse) of the level pipes and a POI location. The main characters primary movement function is his ability to curl into a ball and speed around. This also helps him fit i

I did a few drawings (would you believe me if I said this was in MSpaint and my mouse) of the level pipes and a POI location. The main characters primary movement function is his ability to curl into a ball and speed around. This also helps him fit into tight spaces. There are circuit boards, switches, etc, all hidden in different areas which we need to find in order to progress the game.

I did a basic "Level 01 blockout" in unreal so that we could start adding the gameplay interactables and playtest level progression. I must say though, a lot of our time was spent arguing about puzzles instead of actually programming anything. During

I did a basic "Level 01 blockout" in unreal so that we could start adding the gameplay interactables and playtest level progression. I must say though, a lot of our time was spent arguing about puzzles instead of actually programming anything. During this project I was also still quite new to programming so I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted to.

I started modeling the inner pipes for the level layout. If you're wondering about the dense topology of the walls it's because I was using a spline blueprint to bend the tube-chambers in ue5. The denser topology helped with the texture stretching in

I started modeling the inner pipes for the level layout. If you're wondering about the dense topology of the walls it's because I was using a spline blueprint to bend the tube-chambers in ue5. The denser topology helped with the texture stretching in a lot of places, and made the characters rolling much smoother.

Here's our level 1 layout final. It changed quite a bit. We went from wanting a speedy run around game type to a more explorative and puzzle based game. If that sounds like the entire game changed, it did. Thanks Ari (our professor who I love but als

Here's our level 1 layout final. It changed quite a bit. We went from wanting a speedy run around game type to a more explorative and puzzle based game. If that sounds like the entire game changed, it did. Thanks Ari (our professor who I love but also kept trying to change our character BP).

We used warp pipes to cinematically change locations. Originally these were going to be piloted by the player so they could see how fast they were moving in the pipes, but some collision issues came up and we scrapped it into a teleporter.

We used warp pipes to cinematically change locations. Originally these were going to be piloted by the player so they could see how fast they were moving in the pipes, but some collision issues came up and we scrapped it into a teleporter.

For the project blueprints I created the teleporters, the health system, character rolling system, the terminal monitors (and ui widgets), and the inventory crate systems.

For the project blueprints I created the teleporters, the health system, character rolling system, the terminal monitors (and ui widgets), and the inventory crate systems.

After our core programming was finished I started set dressing the level. Like I said earlier, our other artists kind of said fk it and stopped contributing so I was working double overtime. Quintuple overtime actually because I was in 3 studio cours

After our core programming was finished I started set dressing the level. Like I said earlier, our other artists kind of said fk it and stopped contributing so I was working double overtime. Quintuple overtime actually because I was in 3 studio courses at the time.

Our little POIs came out looking pretty great though. We opted for a baked lighting method just for performance sake. I didn't have time to set up level-instance loading or any LODs for meshes, so we stole performance from lighting.

Our little POIs came out looking pretty great though. We opted for a baked lighting method just for performance sake. I didn't have time to set up level-instance loading or any LODs for meshes, so we stole performance from lighting.

After our tutorial area was finished I tried to set up the secondary chamber but ran out of time. It was going to be a water mill generation area where the player had to run around on rafters and charge up the entire facility.

After our tutorial area was finished I tried to set up the secondary chamber but ran out of time. It was going to be a water mill generation area where the player had to run around on rafters and charge up the entire facility.

Super proud of the work everyone did. Even though people bowed out at the halfway point I think we still managed to get a lot done. Thanks for reading!

Super proud of the work everyone did. Even though people bowed out at the halfway point I think we still managed to get a lot done. Thanks for reading!