Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Farewell (DLC)

General Information

Role: Lead Level Designer

Duration: Nov 2017 - February 2018

Genre: Narrative Adventure

Engine: Unity

Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Mac, Linux, Mobile

Developer: Deck Nine Games

Team Size: ~55

Publisher: Square Enix

Release Date: March 5, 2018

Tools

Overview

During the time I worked on the Life is Strange: Before the Storm bonus episode, “Farewell”, I served as lead level designer. I was a working lead so I continued to be responsible for levels of my own but also took on new responsibilities. I served as the point of contact for the department and worked with production to create a schedule for our tasks. I also reviewed all the levels in the episode to ensure a high level of quality. During the course of production on the episode the team continued to work closely with environment and narrative as we had while making the core game’s episodes.

Responsibilities

Managed the level design team:

  • Collaborated with production to priotize tasks and create schedule for level design team
  • Served as point of contact for other departments
  • Ran team stand-up and organized team meetings
  • Reviewed and gave feedback on levels at various stages
  • Managed and distributed bugs assigned to level design team

Created and maintained documentation:

  • Level design documents
  • Tracking documents for various features
  • Unique gameplay system design documents

Took levels from concept to polished final product:

  • Created and iterated on graybox levels
  • Collaborated with environment and narrative teams to achieve level goals
  • Designed puzzles
  • Implemented and polished interactive and miscellaneous game systems
  • Built collision geometry for cameras and navigation
  • Managed the flow of levels using in-house tools
  • Polished all interactable aspects of the level
  • Responsible for fixing a wide variety of logic and content bugs

My Levels

During the bonus episode “Farewell” I was responsible for two levels, Attic and Downstairs. The two have very different themes and gameplay with the Attic being puzzle based and Downstairs being exploratory.

Bonus Episode: "Farewell" - Attic

During the Attic level Max (player character) has gone into the attic in Chloe’s house to search for an amulet they hid there when they were younger. She spots the amulet when she enters on the opposite side of the cluttered space. To get there the player must re-arrange various pieces of furniture in order to open up a path Max can squeeze through. (31:27 – 38:07)

Bonus Episode: "Farewell" - Downstairs

During the Downstairs level Max and Chloe go through the time-capsule they’ve unearthed in Chloe’s back yard. Chloe finds a drawing pad in it and heads off to the couch to draw while Max looks through the other things. The player must look at a specific number of objects before Chloe finishes her drawing. Once Chloe announces she is done the player can speak with her to start the cinematic to end the level. (49:06 – 1:09:11)