Le Brutaliste
Le Brutaliste is a mobile game I worked on at NAD, made in Unreal 4 with a team of 21. It was published on the Google Play Store for free.
This is an auto-scrolling platformer where you play as Howard, an angry architect in 1940s Montreal. As Howard runs forward, the player must tap and swipe to destroy as many of the rival's creations as they can.
My tasks:
Level design on 3 stages, game design, menu navigation, trailer
Goals:
- Build levels that fit the difficulty curve of the game.
- Reward observation by introducing enemy patterns and then subverting them.
- Reward execution by making the top path the best solution but also the hardest.
Video reflects the work of the entire team.
Early Process
The basic rules of the game were already decided before I joined the project. My early tasks were to:
- "Find the fun" and balance different aspects of the game to make it satisfying.
- Establish the ideal metrics of a level using playtests.
- Document rules of a level design for others to follow.
- Then I created 3 levels using those rules.
Metrics sheet, showing important scales after early playtesting, to help other level designers and me to build levels that followed the same rules, and to give modelers guidelines on model sizes.
Level design
This is the plan of the level shown in the video above. The player reaches this level after about 10 minutes of playtime, which means they are starting to get used to the throwing mechanic, but haven't learned about the animals mechanic. My goals for this specific level were to:
- Explore the throwing mechanic more in-depth than previous levels
- Start complexifying the game with the introduction of negative points (animals)
- Surprise the player by jumping off the roof of a building
- Reward good players by only letting players with a lot of points reach the last bonus
Plan of the level shown in the video above, annoted with explanations.