As a professional designer I have been involved with many projects and many companies. In this page I list the projects and companies that I have worked with as my time as a professional game and level designer.

The projects are ordered in reverse chronological order (most recent to least recent). For further information regarding any of these projects or my involvement in them, contact me at azmodai@gmail.com

In this page I have only included projects that have been either publically announced by the studio or by gaming websites. When possible I have included screenshots and / or videos of the work I completed within these projects. In some cases this is not possible until the project is complete and out the door.

Please note (Jan 2010): I have only recently merged this section of my website from my old "levels" section and at first the content is going to be limited to largely text and video / screengrabs. In the future I intend on including design document samples, early drawings, creative documents and a walkthrough of the creative process in projects that I am allowed to share - Evyn

Janes F-22 : Rotorhead : Heroes Over Europe : Sin City : Killzone 2 : Section 8 Early Prototype : Red Orchestra : Stargate SG1 The Alliance

Janes F-22

Developer: Transmission Games
Publisher: SouthPeak
Role: Senior Designer
Primary Responsibilities: Level creation, mission scripting. weapon and plane tuning / balancing.
Status: In Development

No pictures or videos are available at this time.

Janes F-22 was the project I moved onto after the completion of the Rotorhead prototype. I was placed amongst a team of four designers to create missions, balance the plane loadouts, turn rates, acceleration and decceleration rates, weapon movements and abilities of planes. I was not given a specific position of level designer or game designer but rather was expected to deliver on all fronts in this project.

Rotorhead

Developer: Transmission Games
Publisher: TBA
Role: Senior Designer / Lead Level Designer
Primary Responsibilities: Level creation and mission scripting, weapon loadout and plane tuning, front end scripting, cinematic creation and scripting, level prototyping to completion, research and development within the technology, staff training, setting up pipelines and workflows for artists.
Status: Prototype complete

No pictures or videos are available at this time.

Rotorhead (working title) is a prototype project created by Transmission Games to attempt to capture the sorely lacking action helicopter shooter genre. My direction was "combine Call of Duty's cinematic story with the fluid nature of a first person shooter and put the focus on rescue rather than blowing up of stuff", using that direction I created a helicopter game with the focus on the sucessful rescue and return of lost enemy troops. Borrowing heavily from the arcade classics Desert Strike and Jungle Strike, Rotorhead was developed to be fast, fun, enjoyable with plenty of scripted moments and a real cityscape for the player to fly over and interact with.

Created in 2-3 months as a playable demo (including pre-production time) using Unreal Engine 3. I was responsible for training our art team in creation of assets for the demo, prototyping the environment, developing the helicopter, setting up a story and putting the player in the scenario.

The demo was well received by various publishers.

Heroes Over Europe

Developer: Transmission Games
Publisher: Ubisoft
Role: Experienced Designer / Mission Team lead
Primary Responsibilities: Mission creation and scripting, plane tuning and handling, gameplay mechanic design, dialogue writing, playtesting / feedback gathering, team management
Status: Released 2009

Gametrailers.com Heroes Over Europe Preview

As part of the core design team of Heroes Over Europe, I was responsible for the creation of many elements of the game including 5 missions included in the final release, these include:

- The Butchers Birds
- The Battle of the Bulge
- Empires Heart
- Operation Party Crashers
- Eagle Day

I also had a direct hand in the scripting and development of Operation Cerberus and one other unreleased mission.

Notes:

- All scripting was done in straight LUA from a function list
- Placements and locations were set using the in-house development tool
- All feature design was prototyped in test levels and test environments before being approved by the designers and added to the release build.
- The terrain positions and details were coordinated between the designers desires and the artists constraints
- It would take approximately two to six weeks to develop a level from on-paper design to rough working model
- Gameplay was developed by the design team side by side with the artists developing the terrains through use of placeholder items to signify locations or placements of importance

Sin City

Developer: Transmission Games
Publisher: Red Mile Interactive
Role: Designer
Primary Responsibilities: Mission creation and scripting, weapon / character tuning and handling, gameplay mechanic design, dialogue writing, playtesting / feedback gathering
Status: Project Terminated 2008

Sin City was the first project I moved onto with Transmission Games. Designed to be a third person fighting / exploring game, Sin City would take the player through adventures of Marv and other known characters from the Sin City comic books. Designed to fit into a time period prior to the original movie without breaking the storyline, it introduced a new character and told the story of another well known character.

I was responsible for building early greybox environments, scripting sequences and setting up basic gameplay, while also assisting in refining the combat, movement and fighting mechanics.

The project was terminated with Transmission by the publisher and thus no images or videos are available for public display.

Killzone 2

Developer: Guerrilla Games
Publisher: Sony Entertainment Europe
Role: Multiplayer Designer
Primary Responsibilities: Mission creation and scripting, early prototyping, weapon balancing, ladder setup and rank design.
Status: Released 2009

Gametrailers.com Killzone 2 Preview video.

As part of the multiplayer deisgn team, I worked solely on assisting the creation of the multiplayer modes, the weapon balancing, the environments and the multiplayer ranking system.

For the final release of the game two of my levels were included (and many more designed), these were Heighan Industries and Radec Academy. Videos below of the two levels.

Heighan Industries

Heighan Industries was designed to take the combat to a more vertical axis, putting the focus on obtaining the essential high ground rather than making players travel over long stretches of terrain. I preferred to condense the combat into multi level buildings with surrounding areas for vehicles, turrets and a spawn area for either team.

The two buildings are not mirrored and one stands taller than the other. In order to keep the combat fluid, I added many catwalks, balconies and walkways for the players to move from one building to the next. By adding extra routes for players to move between the buildings promoted the gameplay of quickly jumping down from ledge to ledge to move through the buildings to obtain an objective.

By having the top of the buildings open, this allowed for essential sniping areas but also made the snipers very obvious, and thus the strategy of pushing a sniper off the building to their death was born.

I kept the outdoor areas fairly sparse by comparison to the nearly claustrophobic interiors as this would give the player a direct contrast between chasng their targets through the twisting corridors and heights of the buildings and simple open warfare.

Radec Academy

Radec Academy was designed with a simple idea in mind; One large outdoor area that offered a turret and traded the exposed nature of the area for a bonus and many objective locations. This was (no puns intended) the Killzone of the level. Surrounding this area was a two-tier network of rooms and corridors that would allow players to move from side without moving through the centre if they desired.

The interior was designed with the knowledge that it would become an academy and so I designed the rooms to have a similiar size and walkways that you would encounter in a university setting. By designing with this theme in mind I created several large openings and small staircases to move from area to area. The overall effect combined open warfare (without vehicles) and enclosed warfare similiar to that of many enclosed first person shooters.

By using the academy theme I was able to include many cover points in the form of obstacles often seen in an academy: statues, pillars and walkways / ledges are all prevalent within this design.

Notes:

- All scripting was written in LUA
- All placements and levels were created in Maya. Helpers became placements once given specific names. Levels were exported directly from Maya into the game engine.
- Gameplay was given a priority to graphics.
- Levels were prototyped as "greyboxes" during multiplayer sessions where the entire studio would play new levels. Once the gameplay was solid they were handed to artists to dress them up.
- New levels were created as a Maya level (basic playable) and then written into a document and presented before the producer and lead designers. There would often be 3-4 proposals at the same time and generally one level was chosen. The designs would include the allowance for all objectives, remain creative and offer an even balance to both teams.

Section 8 Early Prototype

Developer: Vision Studios USA / TimeGate Studios
Publisher: SouthPeak
Role: Designer
Primary Responsibilities: Mission Prototyping and creation. Scripting and cinematic design.
Status: In Development

Section 8 E3 2009 Trailer

My role in the early development of Section 8 was to develop the prototype of what would later become Section 8. The initial prototype and design was handled by Vision Studios USA before being submitted to TimeGate for approval. I was responsible for developing the environment, scripting the sequences and fleshing out the very basic gameplay.

Vision Studios USA has since closed and neither I nor the other developers within Vision Studios have been credited on the title. However readers will notice that my header and footer of my website are taken from the early development images of Section 8. More images from my working build of the prototype are below.

The early prototype was created in Unreal Engine 3. All scripting was written in Kismet script and delivered to TimeGate as a working build including the early cinematic / intro and the basic gameplay.

Red Orchestra: Ostfront 1941-1945

Developer: Tripwire Interactive
Publisher: Bold Games
Role: Level Deisgner
Primary Responsibilities: Level Design
Status: Released 2006 via Steam

My role in the development of Red Orchestra was to develop one level in the late stages of the project as a freelance level designer. I worked entirely on the content from my home in Sydney. I was responsible for developing the level flow, cover points and the development of assets for one level - Defense of the Reichstag, set around the battle for the Reichstag (the parliament house in the centre of Berlin)

I have included a gameplay video of the level below.

All content was created and setup using the Unreal Engine

Stargate SG1: The Alliance

Developer: Perception
Publisher: N/A
Role: Level Deisgner (Single Player)
Primary Responsibilities: Mission Design and scripting, tuning and balancing, prototyping, multiplayer level design and balancing, gathering feedback and genereal game design.
Status: Project terminated 2006

E3 2006 Preview Video for Stargate SG1: The Alliance

As part of the Stargate Level Design team, I was responsible for two "missions" from the story. Each of these missions were often between four and six small chunks that became the entire mission. The two missions I was responsible for developing were called Mission 12 and Mission 13.

Each "mission" involved significant design work to a changing design criteria at publisher demands beyond the normal scope of game design.

Below I have included images from the two missions I was tasked with designing and maintaining.

All content was created using Unreal Engine 2.5 and was primarily created inside a custom version of Unreal Ed specifically tailored for the project.

Mission 12 - Attack on the industrial world

 

Mission 13 - Escaping the Tok'ra tunnels.

Notes:

- All placements were set using Unreal Ed
- Missions were created in teams of one designer and one dedicated artist. Most designers would work on two missions at a time. While the designer was developing gameplay in one mission the artist would dress up the other using guidance of the designer. In this way there was little overlap of work.
- All scripting was created using Unreals "ScriptedTrigger" scripting system of Unreal 2.
- Each mission would be broken into four to six chunks with loaders placed at the start and end to allow the levels to work withthe Playstation 2 and Xbox memory budgets
- A seperate version of Unreal Ed was used for the Xbox and PS2 versions of the game.

 

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All Content © 2010 azmodai.com and Evyn Shuley