Tabitu Island

Level Name: „Tabitu Island”

Theme: Archaeologist, treasure hunter, explorer

Characters: Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider (inspiration)

Role: Level designer

Technology used: Unreal Engine 5.4

Genre: TPP action adventure

Development time: about 3 months

Estimated playthrough: 20-25 minutes

Design Intention:

- portfolio expansion

- learning new mechanics and engine functions

- creating a level for a 3-player game based on a known IP

Who is the player:

The player will play the role of archaeologist-explorer John Willey, whose goal is to find an artifact hidden inside the ruins of an ancient civilization. The mission begins when the archaeologist arrives

shore of the island, and due to unfavorable weather conditions, his boat crashes.

What is its purpose and motivation:

The player's goal is to find ancient ruins and solve the puzzle to get there

interior of the temple. The explorer is not the only one trying to find the ruins and obtain the ancient artifact.

Where the mission takes place:

The mission takes place on an island in the Caribbean Sea. The player starts the mission on the beach, from where he must get through the jungle and climb a rock slope to locate an ancient temple.

He will traverse various caves, cliffs and observation points before reaching the village. Then he will visit the ruins, solve puzzles and get to the Temple, where he will obtain an artifact. If he succeeds, enemies will arrive. The player must get off the island.

------------------------------------------------------------

First of all, it was my first serious project as a level designer. I designed the level during the SKVOT course. I managed to develop the following skills:

- getting acquainted with the Unreal Engine v.5

- level design, starting with blockout

- implementation of mechanics and puzzles

- creating blueprints

- learning new industry concepts such as pacing, affordances, breadcrumbs, etc.

I'm very happy that I could transfer my ideas to the engine and create a playable game. Of course, many things could have been done better... such as the exploding barrels. Unfortunately, I didn't create this gameplay element. I would also improve the AI opponents - I would create a better stealth system or combat itself. I'm also not entirely satisfied with the optimization of the game, I'm still learning. I think it would be worth optimizing the lighting system and reducing the number of actors or at least grouping them, which would allow for better performance of the level.

There were difficult moments, but there were also better ones, such as the "lever-gate" mechanics, a system with a lever, created by trial and error. I am most satisfied with the blueprint, which took me quite a long time to create. More specifically, it's about the puzzle system - the player must pick up the "physic box" and place it on the "pressure plate", but if the player accidentally fell into the lava, it would be tantamount to making it impossible to complete the level. We managed to remedy this and create a trigger in the blueprint that could be used to detect the "physic box" and then reset it to the spawn point. After this type of working mechanics or blueprints created, there is great satisfaction with the result achieved.

To finish my statement, I can definitely say that I gained a lot of new information and skills during the course. I know what I could improve and I will try to achieve it with mine next projects in the future.