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FROM THE SHADOWS

Lead Game Designer  |  Technical Game Designer  |  Level Designer

Role

Lead  |  Technical Designer  |  Level Designer

Presence

From pre-production to release

Engine

Unity

Type

Graduation project - 4 months

Genre

Platformer  |  Puzzle  |  Co-op

Platform

PC  |  Mac

Status

Released

Year

2020

ABOUT

From the Shadows is a cooperative puzzle-platformer in which players must escape from a mysterious castle by solving puzzles and overcoming traps around the mechanics of Shadow and Light.

One player controls the Light character, who emits an aura revealing the light platforms and making the shadow platforms disappear.

The other player controls the Shadow character, evolving on these platforms.

This unique mechanic has great depth, which allows the game to be filled with many levels.

From the Shadows won 3rd place at the Game Development World Championship 2020 in the Hobby category and has been downloaded thousands of times on Steam.

LEAD GAME DESIGNER
  • Lead 5 designers from pre-production to a successful launch, with more than 230 reviews on Steam and thousands of downloads. From the Shadows won 3rd place at the Game Development World Championship 2020 in the Hobby category.

  • Increased overall team communication by being a link between Art, Design and Programming teams.

  • Referent in term of level quality and new game mechanics

  • Improved overall level qualities by giving feedback on work produced by other designers

  • Kept everyone busy and interrested by setting up tasks for every weekly sprint

  • Writing and keeping the GDD up to date

[FR] From the Shadows - GDD​

From the Shadows - Item table
TECHNICAL GAME DESIGNER
  • Prototyped the base game in pre-production phase in order to validate game mechanics and pitch the project to others

  • Allowed other level designers to start creating levels really early on on a special prototype​

  • Improved level design efficiency by creating and setting up prefabs in Unity

  • Ensured game mechanics fit within the game by prototyping them before developping them

  • Script different game events in levels (dialogues, animation) using one of our tool, Cinemachine and Animation Track

  • Realisation of in-game cinematic, using Cinemachine and Animation Track, and animating parts of it

  • Programming of the Music Manager script, and implementation of soundtrack and effects using FMOD

Our music is composed of multiple layers that are superimposed throughout the levels. This allows the game to grow in intensity until the final battle against the boss.

The challenge was to implement it in Unity and FMOD, and setting up the levels on which the music increased or decreased in intensity, without ever breaking the loops

MusicManager.cs

SongManager.cs

Here is an example of one part of the FMOD project I set up:

You can see here the parameters that allow me to activate layers independently, and to handle the main volume (increasing in intense moments).

LEVEL DESIGNER
  • Ensured cooperation and storytelling in levels by designing them with special attention to staging, lighting and difficulty

  • Raised level quality by populating them with assets and lighting to highlight important gameplay elements

Levels from prototype to final product:

Exampe level 01 - Proto
Exampe level 01 - Final
Exampe level 02 - Proto
Exampe level 02 - Final
Exampe level 03 - Proto
Exampe level 03 - Final

Video of the boss fight I designed:​

Videos of levels I designed:

TRAILER
LEAD GAME DESIGNER
TECHNICAL GAME DESIGNER
LEVEL DESIGNER
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