El Paso: Elsewhere
- Level Designer -
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Development: Ongoing
Studio Project at Strange Scaffold |
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Project Summary: El Paso, Elsewhere is a supernatural neo-noir third-person action shooter. Hunt werewolves, fallen angels, and other damned creatures in a vivid slow motion homage to old classics like Max Payne 1 & 2. Fight your way through a reality-shifting motel, floor by bloody floor. Save the victims of Draculae, lord of the vampires. Destroy the villain you loved--even if it means dying yourself. Because this is an early access title with a broad community filled with different interpretations and expectations, we made it a priority to take the feedback given to us and iterate our designs to better align with what the average user wanted. On my end, I try to make sure that the levels are made to be as easy as possible for a GM to hop into and start messing around without feeling too overwhelmed. For example: Cliffs are measured and separated evenly so that GM's can place down bridges for walking paths. Openings are presented fairly obviously so that GM's know, "Hey, this looks like a perfect place to build my Goblin Camp!" Holes in floors invite evil GM's to place down traps and cover them to surprise the players. And the levels are balanced around the 5E grid system for fair (or unfair) combat encounters for a variety of different playstyles. Alongside my other responsibilities I've begun outlining and assigning tasks to other members of the team, ensuring tasks are well appropriated and triaged. List of my Levels:
Detailed Level Design Role Descriptions / Tasks:
Concepting:
Development:
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Visit the Steam Page here: website.
--- WARNING: Video contains Strong Language.
Due to NDA requirements, I cannot show development screenshots, but these are all the levels I created from scratch (beginning to end) for the game.
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Recommendations:
Ozan Önen
Senior Network Programmer at Allied Games Inc.;
"In the year and a half I've worked with Jim, he's proven to be a competent and well-developed Level Designer. When he first joined, he demonstrated his skill for learning the development pipeline and UE4 engine quickly and proficiently. Within a year he established himself from a Junior to higher Mid-level designer giving informative ideas, providing detailed and fun designs, and creating documentation the team could use that significantly helped the project.
With each level Jim presented, the designs fit perfect with the game scenarios and visually looked fantastic. When working with Jim over new gameplay functions or other programming-related issues, he gave good suggestions and would lead in a way that made the conversation fun and informative. Whether it's creating fully built and functional levels from top-to-bottom, polishing existing ones, or fixing and reporting bugs, Jim was always willing to go above and beyond for the project to get things done in a timely and proficient manner.
It was an amazing experience working with Jim and would love to do it again in the future. I'd recommend him to any studio that's looking for a well-established and large contributing Level Designer."