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On Ambrosia, I was the designer and developer. My responsibilities included:

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​Features I Designed and Built

  • Side-scrolling puzzle design, prototyping, and construction

  • Level pacing

  • Environment puzzle design

  • Checkpoint design & placement

  • Color-Changer item design & placement

  • Nectar gate button design & placement

  • Enemy design, and placement

  • 3rd person default UE4 Character Blueprint tweaks

  • No HUD clutter

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  • Visual Scripting (Unreal Blueprints)

  • Enemy construction

  • Collectible pick-up and counter

  • Character Color Change tweaks

  • Various bug fixes​

  • Nectar gate tweaks

  • Various bug fixes​

  • Nectar gate button

  • Quality Assurance

  • Level Outro Scripted Events

  • Music and audio cue implementation

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Ambrosia is a two player cooperative game in a puzzle filled world set in the Greek Garden of the Gods. Playing as a Sprite, Ambrosia aims to provide friendly gameplay using the player character’s ability to change colors using objects found in the environment. The levels are filled with carefully placed Colored Obstacles, nectar, that allow the player sharing its color to phase through it. Players must figure out the correct order and combination of colors to progress further into the level and plant the Ambrosia Flowers for the gods.

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Project Design Goals

 

  • Create 3 fun levels in the Unreal Engine 4

  • Demonstrate skills in environment puzzle design and level pacing

  • Create an interesting game mechanic that shows long term gameplay potential

  • Make a two player cooperative game using a side-scrolling camera

Studio

Personal Project

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Platform

Windows PC

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Engine

Unreal Engine 4

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Tools Used

Maya

Photoshop

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Duration

3 weeks

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Completion

Vertical Slice

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Team Size

2

Ambrosia Game Design Document Sample Download

Gameplay Reel

Details

Ambrosia grew from a simple idea to three levels meant to showcase the heart of what the game's mechanics and puzzles can evolve into. From start to finish, the game takes roughly 20-25 minutes to complete. The levels are designed using general whiteboxing methods, so that I could focus on gameplay and level design rather than asset creation.

Level Design
Level 1 Example

​Goals

  • Player path is always forward while learning basic mechanics

    • Progress to​ more nonlinear level design to challenge the player in a different way

  • Environmental Clues

    • Distinct difference as to what is Nectar and not​

    • Distinct difference as to what is an enemy and not​​

  • Player Progression (flow of learning mechanics)

Following Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Second Edition "Skill & Challenges" curve theory, my design intent was to introduce to the players their characters abilities, interactive objects, enemies, and goal at a pace that would keep their interest and continue to challenge their team skills. Each level was designed in sections; first analyzed as a whole, then individually, and lastly as a whole again.

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Level 1 serves as an introduction to the character controller and teaches the player the core gameplay loop (character color change & effects of colors in environment). This level ends with a simple test of the players new knowledge.

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Level 2 will start introducing puzzles, again following Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Second Edition "Skill & Challenges" curve theory. The intent is to add elements of easy and hard fun for the player.

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Level 3, while linear, introduces a slightly more exploratory element to the game; forcing the players to go forward and then backtrack with a new perspective of the environment. At this point, the players should have a solid understanding the core gameplay loop. allowing for the introduction of new mechanics, such as the Nectar Toggle Change Buttons. This Level ends challenging the players with a deeper understanding of core gameplay loop and test to their understanding of the Nectar Color Toggle Buttons.

In the example puzzle above, the game forces the players to separate from each other, momentarily sending the yellow player to step 3 before the red player. While a simple puzzle, both players must initially realize that the yellow player must wait for the red player to  help before they can progress further.

Color Change Mechanic
Level 2: Section 2.6

Goals

  • Player path is always forward while learning basic mechanics

    • Progress to​ more nonlinear level design to challenge the player in a different way

  • Environmental Clues

    • Distinct difference as to what is Nectar and not​

    • Distinct difference as to what is an enemy and not​​

  • Player Progression (flow of learning mechanics)

Design Considerations

  • Players must never be able to break the puzzle!

    • No way to accidentally leave the 2nd player behind

    • No way to accidentally block ​level progression by being the wrong color by accident

  • Provide time for the players to go back and rethink how to solve the puzzle

  • Both players must exit this puzzle as the color red

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Nectar Color Button Mechanic
Level 3: Section 3.1

​Goals​

  • Players are must learn how the Nectar Color Toggle Button effects the environment without feeling overwhelmed

  • The first puzzle involving the Nectar Color Toggle Button should not be too easy to solve

At this section in Level 3, the players should by now have a strong understanding of how their character color interacts with the world. This is when a new challenge is introduced, (tentatively called) Nectar Color Toggle Button.

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Going back on this project, I have considered breaking Level 3 into two separate levels, where the puzzle above is the last puzzle of Level 3 and a far more simple Color Toggle Button precedes the puzzle above.

Credits

Daniel House

Designer

Level Development

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Anne Donahoo

Main Character Artist:

Model

Rigging

Animation

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