Asphalt: Xtreme (2016)

Together with Gameloft I had the unique opportunity to participate in one of the most highly anticipated racing games of 2016 for the mobile market.

I was primarily focused on level creation and modifications. I had to perform the following tasks: Provide a refined greybox for the racetrack Svalbard (using 3DS Max), nitro bottles, road obstacles, AI paths for all vehicle archetypes including dedicated monster truck areas and the racetrack start positions. All placements and adjustments were created and modified with the game engine and passed onto other members of the team for additional testing.

Last but not least, developing techniques to optimise the game as best as possible to run on a wide array of devices. At a later stage, I began to work on other racetracks to enhance the game-play experience even further which then landed me the opportunity to help create the tutorial of the game, along with other talented designers.

Platform: IOS, Android, Windows

Genre: Racing

Role: Level Design

Publisher: Gameloft

Nepal

Before I took the reigns of the Nepal track; there already was a rough grey-box that was left on the sidelines to be picked up later on, once the track was in full production. My first task was to review it and eventually add the required changes to make it more enjoyable. Nepal wen't through many iterations; the final product is vastly different to the previous grey box I undertook at the beginning. One of the major drawbacks that the grey-box had was the lack of vertical paths, there were only a few zones where vehicles could mingle and cross each other; that was fixed by adding some more complexity in the bridge area and the section following it. Once I had finally nailed down the grey-box including: AI paths, nitro bottles, Monster truck fences and obstacles the main artist team finally took over and performed their magic to make the track pop.

Svalbard: Ship Graveyard

The silhouette of the race track was already defined by the time I arrived at Gameloft, my first task was to make the level more fun by injecting more vertical game-play. As a result I began modifying the ship graveyard by placing three wrecked ships that can be accessed from different directions and creating small hidden paths that link up smoothly to the primary road. I did not want to restrict the player by narrowing their choices, however there had to be a soft point otherwise their sense direction and orientation would be lost, reducing the amount of fun. Therefore, having small intricate paths that kept players visible with one another provided the best amount of excitement without confusing the player too much. 

Svalbard: Ice cavern

The Ice cavern was the next area I began to tackle, initially this area was one big corridor that lasted a few seconds; I took the liberty in creating two vertical paths parallel to each other with different heights to allow players to cross from side to side. This resulted in a more chaotic game-play experience with vehicles zigzagging above and below, instilling a sense of mayhem which resulted in a thrilling experience.

Tutorial

Participated in the brainstorming and implementation of the first baby steps the player will ever make. My role specifically was to place all the trigger zones (boxes that fire when the player drives into them, resulting in: a slow motion effect with a faint tint and a message pop up that helps the player) . Each trigger box was hand placed and linked manually to create the desired effect of the image on your left!