Evolution Cycle
January 2022 - May 2022
University team project
My roles: Level designer, gameplay designer, QA
Inspirations: Ring Fit Adventure, Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genres: Excercise, Fantasy, Adventure
Platforms: PC
Engine: Unreal Engine 4.26.2
Tools: Unreal Engine 4, Blender, Jira, GitHub, Microsoft Office tools, Google Workspace, Adobe Photoshop
Team size: 8
Pre-production
Low power
Medium power
High power
Evolution Cycle is an exercise video game that requires a bike trainer with a power sensor, connected via ANT+. Since it uses a bike that cannot turn, and the only input is the power from the bike reader, the team and I decided to make the levels (a tutorial and a main level) linear and on-rails. The game's main mechanic is the player character will change size according to how much power is being inputted via the bike through cycling. Low power keeps the main character into a smaller form, allowing the player to go through narrow tunnels, the medium form is used for flying, and the highest most powerful form is used to break certain obstacles
After a few rough sketches and level plans, I co-ordinated with the game and narrative designer with out team and decided to set the level in the fairy forest. In the game's narrative all the magic is being syphoned by the Goblin King, and the main character sets out on an adventure to defeat him. The level starts in the fairy village, goes through the forest and ends at the entrance of a cave.
Blockout and development
A lot of research went into fairy forests and fairy villages. The first part of my blockout went into the creation of the main character's village. The player's home is on the east side and on the west side is the exit of the village, through which the main character goes out into the forest.
The village and the forest are dotted by mushrooms of various sizes, tall trees, and the centre of the town has a lantern.
One of my responsibilites was the placement of the spline we used to put the player character on rails.
I created meshes specifically for the blockout. They were very simple. I was also responsible for placing obstacles for the playtesting. Some were added and removed in the final version, some stayed.
I also implemented breakable meshes with the apex destruction system, available as a plugin in Unreal.
I also created several materials, found and implemented copyright free music and sound effects into the game, and directed playtests by myself or with other people. All the playtests were recording player's opinions, times to complete the level and how they felt physically after.
I also found and recorded bugs in Jira, and helped fix them where I could.
The tutorial level was created after the main level, it began in a glowing mushroom cave and ended at the main character's village. It was meant to introduce all obstacles and power requirements.
Due to time constraints it was not included in the final version of the game, but it was fully blocked out.
Final thoughts
This project tested and rewarded my synergy with all my team, and I found myself quite happy working with them all. Level design is a discipline tightly knit to all other aspects of development, and I am glad I was able to maintain that fine balance.
The main focus on the level design was to make sure there were enough challenges throughout the game world, but to also not overwhelm players with obstacle after obstacle, since the mechanics all relied on the power input from the bike. This way, we were able to create a balanced challenge for everyone, regardless of skill.
Screenshots
