Marian MAGLOIRE

Level Design:
Create, balance and test levels. Rational Level Design (RLD). Write docs, QA.

Game Design:
Game Concept writing. Behaviours designing. Playtest management.

Overkill's The walking Dead

Overkill Software

I had the opportunity to work on Overkill’s the Walking Dead (OTWD) as a level designer on instances of levels. Only one remains in the game on release.
It has been made entirely in about 5 weeks and provides 3 different scenarios, with randomization of the enemies and gameplay elements (traps, supplies, …), under Unreal Engine 4.
You can see a 4 players playthrough, very loud, on the rescue scenario in the following video:

My tasks included:

Pitching level ideas
Puzzle prototyping
Laying out the gameplay element in the provided play space
Balancing
Bug Fixing

OTWD has been released on the 06/11/2018 for PC and to be announced for PlayStation 4 and XBOX One.

Feel free to read the detailed concept on the LDD.

Official website Steam Store page LDD

RAID: World War II

Lion Game Lion

I came to Lion Game Lion in the middle of the production, worked as a level designer and had in charge 4 levels on release:

The Flaktower both Raid and Operation (partly in charge).
The Reichsbank both Raid and Operation (partly in charge).
The Castle both Raid and Operation (partly in charge).
The Forest Convoy.

My tasks included:

Pitching level ideas
Prototyping those ideas
(Re)Designing the layout of the levels
(Re)Designing the objectives list to be accomplished by the player
Balancing
Bug fixing

RAID: World War II has been released the 26/09/17 for PC and on the 10/10/17 for PlayStation 4 and XBOX One.

Official website Steam Store page

Cube Vacuum

Portal 2

Level made to showcase my skills. Production time: 6h + 2h after playtests.

My intention was to take, as a core gameplay, a mechanism never used before in both Portal games.
The Pneumatic Diversity Vent (vacuum) has always been used as a scenaristic prop, but never has been considered as the core of any puzzle.

The vacuum mechanism is to suck stuff when not used to deal cube to the player. It implies that the solution would be to remove something out of the way of the avatar to progress.
So the concept of the level is to remove the cube out of a "negative" switch to open doors.

Level key features:

Exclusive use of the vacuum as a true gameplay element, with both good and bad outcomes!
Use of good and, rarely seen, bad switches.
NO skillshot required to complete the level, only logic.
Pattern based challenges.

Feel free to check the steam workshop page, read the detailed concept on the LDD or read essentials feedback on the post-mortem.

Steam Workshop LDD Post-Mortem

Two Towers

Gunpoint

Level made to showcase my skills. Production time: 11h + 30m after playtests.

After reading the dev blog of Tom Francis, author of Gunpoint, to gather the specs and metrics of a typical gunpoint level, I read that an inspiration for the game was to turn Deus Ex into a 2D game.

Tom Francis decided to build levels on single paths because he "tried designing a new level with […] at least two routes to every objective and sub-objective. It was terrible."^[source]

On this base, I designed a level proposing several routes!

Level key features:

Unexampled "2 physically separated routes" level.
Unique playstyle with a path dedicated to manipulate the A.I. (the guards become the mandatory keys to progress)
Replayability with different playstyles (stealth, berserk and manipulative)

Feel free to check the steam workshop page, read the detailed concept on the LDD or read essentials feedback on the post-mortem.

Steam Workshop LDD Post-Mortem

Update - 2016-05-08

Two Towers hits the Gunpoint's workshop most popular item of the week!

Recommendations

CTF-SpaceStation Screenshot

Just Dance 2

Ubisoft - Dancing game - Wii

Mimic the choreography of the on-screen dancer, sync your moves to the rhythm of the icons to score the maximum points and beat your friends. Don't miss the gold moves!

As a level designer, I achieved the following:

Gave feedback on the delivered choreographies to:
- Respect the key triggers (rhythm, fun, learning curve, time of rest…).
- Fit the limitations and specs related to the Wii.
Split the choreography into moves, set their difficulty to bring an adapted scoring and define the gold moves.


Aqua's Barbie Girl moves list.

Player 1 "Gold move"	Player 1 "Gold move"	Gold moves in game

Took part in playtest sessions to adjust my work and bring the final touches.
Communicated, shared and resolved problems with all the other teams involved (structure of about one hundred employees).

Side projects

I am currently holding 1 side project about level design: a course and I was also writing on a micro blog.

The first is a course I am currently writing, targetting beginners in level design. My goal for this course was to prepare it, following those guidelines:

The slides should contain the least writing possible with a strong use of icons.
The ideas should be communicated the simpliest and most efficient way possible.
Each lesson must bring the "WOW!" effect to all students.
Examples, exercises and corrections must be provided.

LD Course

The second project was a micro blog, named LD tricks, about little tricks that might improve your level designs. Made in collaboration with Sylvain Douce, we attempted within this website to replace your "FB/9gag/whatever break time" with a bit a level design.
The concept has been inpired by UX Myths.
I filled this blog with all the little details I came accross while working and/or playing which wasn't big enough to *deserve* its own lesson in the level design course described above.
As of today, the website is down, as the little audience we had wasn't big enough to justify the maintenance costs.

Sylvain's LinkedIn

Le Marionnettiste (The Puppeteer)

Student project - Puzzle/Platformer - PC

"Le Marionnettiste" is the student project I have made with 5 teammates.
You control a puppet with your Wiimote as you would do it with a rod! Beware not to get your strings tangled!

Developped over 9 months on Unity and destinated for the Wii, I had the following positions:

Lead level designer
- Level designing and prototyping for portions of the game.
- Collating and collaborating the data of the team.
- Fine tuning the game world and analysing LD curves (difficulty/pace/reward/learning).
- Writing documents detailing the overall level design of the entire game (Layout, LD curves breakdown…).
- Setting up all the cameras, transitions to engine cinematics, animating engine cinematic cameras.
Programmer
- Puppet string (physics and visuals).
- cameras.
- UI and menus.
- Tools.
Sound designer
- Building the SFX collection.
- Lay them out in the 3D world editor.

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