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Kneedle Knight

Game Summary

Kneedle Knight follows the story of a knight turned mouse as he fights his way through an evil witch’s castle with nothing but a magic needle in hand. Join in on the fun in this 3D Puzzle Platformer, available now on Steam.

Info

Engine: Unreal Engine 5

Development Time: September – December 2023

Role: Level Designer

Team Size: 22

My Role

As a level designer on this project, I performed several tasks over the course of development including:

    • Creating a metric zoo to test and tweak player controller settings
    • Prototyping enemy types
    • Designing and iterating upon Level 2 with a fellow level designer

Screenshots

Metric Zoo

After our GD finalized the initial design of the game, I was put on the metrics team. Working alongside 2 of our programmers, I requested movement variables, made suggestions for how the controls should work, and tweaked variable values. To test these values, I created a metric zoo using simple BSP to build platforms and walls and text renderers to mark distance.

Metric Zoo Progress 1
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Level 2 Blockout Stages

During this project, I worked on Level 2 with one other designer. My teammate and I decided to split the level into two parts. As a result, I worked on the latter half of the level.

Level 2 Blockout Pic 1
This is an overview of the first iteration on the second half of Level 2
This is an overview of the second iteration on the second half of Level 2
This is the first iteration of the last portion of Level 2
This is the second iteration of the last portion of Level 2
This is the first iteration on the middle portion of the second half of Level 2

Level 2 Refinement Stages

After a few iterations on the initial design of the level, I moved into finalizing the design by making small tweaks here and there. This is also the time when I began adding art assets as they were given to us. 

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Final Product

This is the final result of the second half of Level 2.

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Post Mortem

What Went Well

  • My partner and I were able to communicate efficiently throughout the project which made it easy to connect the two parts of our level together in the middle
  • My communication with the game designer, the LD lead, and my teammate allowed my design to be consistent with the rest of the game
  •  I was able to make significant changes to the player controller (with the help of the metric zoo I built) which gave the game designer a solid base to tweak later on

What Went Wrong

  • Some portions of my level were not working, and they didn’t get changed until later into development
  • There were some miscommunications between the different disciplines which caused confusion on my part, thus leading to repeated and lost work

What I Learned

  • I gained a better understanding of how metric values work together to affect the feel of the player controller. I also learned that just the slightest adjustment can make all the difference
  • I learned how to take the initiative to approach and ask my leads if I ran into any blockers or became confused during the development process
  • I learned how and gained proficiency in using Jira to create bug reports, spotted design issues, and keep track of tasks assigned to me