Blocktober 2025
Levels: 25-31

#25: Day 21: Volcanic Descent

Continued the volcanic setting by taking the player inside the volcano, descending through lava chambers, cavern systems, and molten vistas.

Focused on guiding the player through towering spaces, using sightlines, traversal routes, and natural composition for navigation.

Accepted flaws such as unfinished lighting and rough edges as part of the iterative Blocktober process, prioritizing learning over polish.

Designed around verticality and traversal, with climbing, drops, platforming, and layered routes to reinforce scale and danger.

Built in Unity while refining traversal gameplay, experimenting with movement clarity and spatial readability.

Achieved a strong sense of structure, flow, and vista moments, balancing spectacle with progression and forward momentum.

#26: Day 3: Smugglers Haven

Designed a hidden smuggler camp tucked inside a coastal bay, used as a pirate hub for stored resources, contraband, and supplies.

The ship functions as a constant visual landmark, anchoring player navigation and providing a clear destination throughout the level.

Multiple alternate routes and stealth paths, rewarding exploration and letting players choose between aggression, infiltration, or rooftop traversal.

The player’s objective is to infiltrate the camp, navigate patrol routes, and reach the ship at the far end to free a captured companion.

Built around layered verticality, interior spaces, stairs, and elevated paths; includes a key traversal moment: a high jump from a cliff/building into the water.

After rescuing the companion, the player can unlock a one-way shortcut to open a new route, enabling a fast escape path back through the environment.

#27: Day 27: Base Breakout

Built a small-scale base level with no heavy theme, focusing purely on spatial clarity, pacing, and flow.

Explores shortcuts, loops, and revisiting spaces, letting players rethink their route as they unlock new paths.

Prioritized dense but readable geometry, making every room and corridor distinct enough to support fast orientation.

Core design goal: make a compact space feel engaging without relying on spectacle, emphasizing layout over visuals.

The main objective is to escape the base, but success depends on learning the layout and navigating efficiently, not just fighting through.

Every shortcut is placed with purpose, to speed up traversal, improve pacing, and reinforce mastery of the environment.

#28: Day 16: Riverside Ruins

Designed a lush mountain valley blockout featuring a hidden ruin excavation site nestled between rocky cliffs and dense vegetation.

Applied controlled noise and environmental clutter to create contrast, helping points of interest stand out naturally.

Leveraged composition, scale, and contrast instead of signage to direct the player’s movement and curiosity.

Key focus: framing and composition, using terrain and foliage to guide attention toward key spaces.

Balanced vegetation density with clear visual pathways, ensuring readability without losing the sense of overgrowth.

Small adjustments in layout and visibility proved highly effective for environmental guidance and visual storytelling.

#29: Day 14: Terminal Collapse

Built a destroyed airport complex for an Elimination FFA / 2v2 game mode, translating real airport operations into gameplay-relevant spaces.

Designed open-air airfield combat spaces with wrecked planes and scattered cargo to contrast with the tighter, interior choke points.

Used environmental storytelling (ruined signage, abandoned luggage, damaged structures) to imply a wartime strike or failed evacuation.

Featured full airport infrastructure: train arrival, check-in halls, shopping district, security, boarding gates, and waiting terminals as navigable combat zones.

Added multilevel traversal (2nd and 3rd floors) to maximize verticality, flanking routes, and layered engagements.

Experimented with controlled environmental noise indoors, testing clarity, readability, and pacing within cluttered destruction.