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Starshot
Role:
Level & Narrative Designer
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Designed levels for a hand-tracked VR puzzle game in a zero-gravity environment
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Crafted the story, wrote dialogue scripts for 8 levels, the opening and end sequences, and planned + wrote text for journal entries, posters, and other lore items found in game
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Assisted in programming, UI, and 3D modeling as other teams needed more help or as deadlines approached
Fling and float your way through a zero-gravity spacecraft in Starshot, a fully hand-tracked VR puzzle game! When systems begin to mysteriously fail aboard, the AI pilot, S.T.E.L.A., accidentally wakes you out of cryo-sleep instead of the lead engineer. You must punch an energy core throughout various levels into power receptors and uncover the true cause behind these malfunctions.
Link to game website
Trailer
Level Design:
As a level designer on the team, my main responsibilities were creating the first and last levels of the game. I help concept the gameplay style we were aiming for, our puzzle elements, and the flow of the levels especially with laying out the narrative along with gameplay.
For the levels I created, I was responsible for: sketching initial ideas, creating the shape of these rooms and grayboxing both levels, rigorously testing gameplay, administering public playtests, programming new puzzle elements used throughout multiple levels or unique to my own, preliminary lighting for both levels—and final lighting for the first—and I also modeled & textured a few key assets needed for these levels. Lastly, I wrote the dialogue scripts for these levels, and all levels featured in the game, but I won't touch too much on that now. If you're interested, you can see my work done as a narrative designer here!
Level Showcases
08
Misc. Work:
With the scope we had in mind for the game, there became times where certain deadlines weren't being met or work in one area could just be overflowing due to a plethora of reasons. Along with my Narrative and Level design responsibilities, I also took on being a sort of "Swiss-Army knife" for the team, lending a hand to different departments whenever I was able to. This included, for example, 3D modeling and texturing sometimes, aiding in smaller programming tasks like narrative triggers or programming puzzle elements like the laser, and helping create the UI functionality of our terminal system. Below are samples of the various extra tasks I took on.
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3D Modeling Assistance:
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3D Modeling Assistance: ​​​
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Central Rotating Tube, main prop element of last level​
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Model for Laser Emitters puzzle element
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Process:
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Blockout in Unity, Modeled in Maya, made a material in Substance Designer then textured in Substance Painter.​
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Blockout
The last level, located in the Maintenance section of the spacecraft, features a large rotating central tube that the player scales: weaving in and out of the tube ascending to the ground level.
Due to the nature of VR, motion sickness was a worry. With the tube rotating slowly, some players felt this worry as they constantly saw a tube rotating around them when inside.
To resolve this, I modeled a rotating outer shell and a motionless inner shell. Since the outer shell had doorways, and the inner shell could not rotate, each layer of the inner tube had a carved out hole from the wall, so as the outer doorway rotates around it, player would be able to squeeze inside.
Substance Painter Textures
Laser Emitter model:
Code sample of laser:
UI Functionality for Terminal system, as well as populating the terminal's content.
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