projet overview:
I had the opportunity to join the Double Stallion team as a Junior Level Designer during the pre-production of their next title: Surfpunk. This was my first professional experience, and I gained an incredible amount of knowledge and pride working in such a creative environment.
In this PvE co-op extraction ARPG, you play as raiders navigating motorized surfboards across submerged ruins in search of treasure and adventure.
Each mission procedurally generates an archipelago from a pool of islands and their variations. While exploring these islands, players can uncover resources and progression treasures—both intra-mission and meta— such as Ancient World technologies, battles against hostile creatures, and various challenges.
ROLES:
- Designed procedural island environments, from reference research to playable version in Unity.
- Implemented satisfying combat scenarios and refined the gameplay across both new and existing islands.
- Prototyped engaging events as "Points of Interest" (POIs) to enrich the islands of Surfpunk using scripting tools.
- Collaborated closely with designers, artists, and integrators to ensure alignment with the creative vision of Surfpunk.
- Actively participated in team discussions and feedback sessions to enhance all aspects of gameplay.
island design : creative process
reference research
What I primarily look for :
- Interesting shapes and elevations for a "top-down" gameplay view
- Landmarks and Points of Interest (POIs)
- Organic examples of coastal environments
- Interesting shapes and elevations for a "top-down" gameplay view
- Landmarks and Points of Interest (POIs)
- Organic examples of coastal environments
I started a reference image collection to guide me in designing future islands and maintain the creative vision of the submerged Ancient World. I made sure to periodically add new content to the board to keep the ideas fresh.
identifying pois and the island's various rhythms
When creating a new island, I had to think about the placement of POIs: one major and several minor ones. I had to ensure there was :
1 : Interesting focal points that are suitable for supporting each type of gameplay event generated during a session.
2 : Exploration moments to regulate the island's rhythms: Exploration > Combat > Treasures.
Here is my first island concept : #13 - Layered Terraces which I developed up to its alpha version.
Blocking: A mix of modular pieces, grey box, and red box (inaccessible areas) to quickly shape a layout through which I can move a player character and gather feedback from my colleagues. The blocking was done using the ProBuilder tool.
Basic Level Art : Once I’m satisfied with the blocking, I set the overall ambiance and themes by placing some scenery and leave notes for the final Level Art pass by the artists.
Basic Level Art : Once I’m satisfied with the blocking, I set the overall ambiance and themes by placing some scenery and leave notes for the final Level Art pass by the artists.
BRINGING THE EXPLORATION OF RUINS TO LIFE THROUGH VERTICALITY AND DEPTH
My task was to incorporate more verticality and depth into the new concepts to encourage more engaging exploration and create captivating environments.
- Different layers: Elevation changes should be frequent. This island is actually a blend of rooftops and terraces from a submerged residential neighborhood.
- Signs of time: Even though these are ruins, each island tells a story and shows signs of a cataclysm. The paths taken by players aren’t necessarily the same as they were before the destruction of the Ancient World.
This section of island #13 - Layered Terraces was born from my desire to break the linearity of my initial sketch and blocking. It’s one of my favorite sections, and it encouraged me to reuse its techniques in my future environments.
INTEGRATION of gameplay AND VARIATIONS: COMBAT, RESOURCES & REWARDS, NAVIGATION, POI EVENTS
Once my blocking was revisited, I integrated the navigation elements, making sure to include, where possible, multiple ways to interact with the environment: jumping, building a ladder, blowing up a debris wall.
Machinery and other resources should be placed within the environment so that players feel like scavengers during exploration or after a battle.
Enemies follow climb links that I manually placed to define the architectural pieces they can scale and to allow them to approach players from multiple locations at once.
To support our procedural generation system, I segmented the islands into sections within the editor to create several nested variations of them, including variations in resource types, POI events, combat, and even level art elements, as long as the NavMesh wasn’t affected.
Each type of scripted event generates a combat encounter from a list of enemy groups that I created in collaboration with the other designers. There are 3 combat scenarios, typical of ARPG style, which we standardized into prefabs and integrated into each island:
- Generic enemy patrols : Large aggro radius. They come toward the players from various directions to fill downtime and create pressure.
- Groups guarding treasures or events : Smaller aggro radius, but containing more dangerous enemies such as Captains. It’s up to the players to decide whether the fight is too risky before advancing, typical of ARPG style.
- Ambushes : Groups of enemies with large aggro that emerge from nests after interacting with a treasure or event and chase the players.
3 other islands in playable version : overview
The more islands I created, the more comfortable I became with moving away from the more generic designs of those made before my arrival, offering greater variety in layouts and new themes to the environments.
PROTOTYPES OF GENERATED EVENTS
En plus de la création des environnements, j'avais le mandat de créer des prototype sous forme d’événements compatibles à la génération dans les zones de POI principalement à l’aide des outils de scripting de Quantum. Au total, j’ai créé 4 prototypes de gameplay de difficultés variées, tous conservés dans la version actuelle du projet.
Chaque prototype est accompagné de rétroactions visuelles et auditives temporaires lorsqu'il est activé, en cours de progression, réussi ou échoué, etc.
In addition to creating environments, I was tasked with creating prototypes in the form of events compatible with the procgen in POIs areas, mainly using Quantum’s scripting tools. In total, I created 4 gameplay prototypes of varying difficulty, all of which were kept in the current version of the project.
I provided each prototype with temporary visual and auditory feedback when it is activated, in progress, completed, or failed, etc.
example of an event: combat arena against the clock
Upon activation of the war horn: players must defeat all enemies before the progress bar runs out to receive a big reward. In this video, my colleagues are playing at an intermediate difficulty.
My goal was to create an intense challenge where the pressure is constant, no matter which island it is generated on. Five waves of enemy groups continuously come from different locations around the gameplay area. Notably, we encounter Captain-type enemies, which are stronger and more complex, in every other wave.
appendix I : incomplete or postponed island Concepts