Blocktober 2025
6-14
#6: Day 28: Echoes in the Chasm
Designed a vast cave system split by a deep chasm, offering two distinct paths to the same goal.
Right path emphasizes claustrophobic tension, navigating tight, market-like areas and risk-filled open bridge sections.
Incorporated blue statues as landmarks to aid player orientation and maintain spatial awareness.
Opened the level with a large vista and clear central landmark, guiding player attention and establishing the dual-route structure.
Left path focuses on timing and precision, moving past patrols and through partially collapsed structures for varied pacing.
Both paths merge across the chasm, delivering a satisfying payoff and contrasting spatial experiences for the player.
#7: Day 7: Skyport City
Designed an floating island city suspended high above the clouds.
Focused on level readability and verticality, ensuring the mansion is visible from nearly every point to guide player navigation.
Experimented with small cutscenes to enhance narrative and player engagement.
Created distinct gameplay areas: a port for incoming airships, a bustling market with NPCs, and the boss’s mansion as a visible objective.
Integrated infiltration gameplay, leading players through urban spaces toward the skyport boss.
Designed with POIs, landmarks, and alternate routes to provide players strong spatial orientation and multiple navigation options.
#8: Day 4: Hidden Warehouse
Designed a high-altitude mountain warehouse level, where players infiltrate to disrupt enemy supply operations.
Integrated multiple vantage points to enhance spatial awareness and tactical decision-making.
Focused on infiltration gameplay, combining exploration, navigation, and stealth elements.
Divided the level into three distinct areas, each offering clear player overview and progression cues.
Emphasized verticality, from climbing onto buildings, hanging to the next structure, and making big jumps over enemy groups for exciting gameplay moments.
Balanced readability and environmental storytelling to guide players through the mountainous terrain and warehouse complex.
#9: Day 6: Crash Site
Designed a short, tactical level set around a plane crash site, with enemies establishing a temporary base among the wreckage.
Level progression involves descending into the wreckage, navigating tight spaces, and engaging in combat to reach the other side.
Incorporated exploration opportunities in broken buildings to collect items and rewards, encouraging curiosity.
Players start on a vantage point, surveying the base layout, enemy patrol paths, and safe approach routes.
Both start and end areas use halves of the airplane as safe zones, offering temporary respite and strategic vantage points.
Balanced verticality and flow, guiding the player through descent, combat, and ascent while maintaining readability and excitement.
#10: Day 18: Ruins of the Republic
Designed a city overtaken by a revolutionary faction, where players must fight or sneak through occupied districts to survive.
Balanced stealth and combat, allowing players freedom to choose their approach for each encounter.
Integrated layered urban storytelling, blending environmental cues with tactical gameplay opportunities.
Structured the level to transition between tight alleys, enemy-controlled streets, and a collapsed underground subway.
Focused on pacing through variety: narrow alleys for tension, open zones for patrols and combat, and dark subway areas for atmosphere and choice.
Emphasized readability and navigation, guiding players through verticality, sightlines, and contrasting spaces while maintaining engagement.
#11: Day 24: Crimson Sanctuary
Experimented with a larger overall scale to impact player perception, flow, and sense of space.
Used clear sightlines and POIs to guide the player’s eye and support navigation.
Designed a short, simple level to test how grand scale affects mood, traversal, and atmosphere.
Focused on large architectural shapes rather than dense detail, creating a strong visual impact with minimal complexity.
Maintained low visual noise, emphasizing important elements and reducing distractions for better readability.
Explored the impact of scale on player experience, showing how minimal composition can still convey strong environmental storytelling.
#12: Day 30: Bones of the Canyon
Designed a tight canyon range level, challenging players with narrow, layered terrain and constant threats from roaming raiders.
Featured a massive creature skeleton landmark, serving as both a visual focal point and a tense combat encounter space with balanced cover and exposure.
Integrated verticality and spatial variation, culminating in a short climb to higher ground for a final challenge before escape.
Emphasized careful timing, vision, and traversal, using natural obstacles to create tension and strategic movement.
Introduced a split-path point of interest, offering an enemy-heavy route requiring stealth and a traversal-focused route with indoor sneaking and zipline descent.
Balanced combat, stealth, and traversal, encouraging players to adapt their approach while exploring and navigating the canyon environment.
#13: Day 19: Frozen Freight
Designed a stranded, abandoned oil tanker level set in an icy wasteland, with scattered containers and cargo falling into the frozen sea.
Emphasized pacing through contrast, alternating between open, exposed ice fields for vulnerability and tight, claustrophobic interiors for tension.
Focused on atmosphere and spatial rhythm, using environmental storytelling and structural design to heighten immersion.
Players navigate broken ice fields, tilted containers, and the damaged interior of the tanker while confronting lingering bandits.
Balanced exploration and combat, encouraging players to use environmental layout for strategic movement and engagement.
Created a compact, high-intensity level that tests traversal, sightlines, and environmental awareness within a short play experience.
#14: Day 20: Sands of the Sentinel
Designed a desert cliffside level near a rugged mountain range, featuring an ancient ruin being excavated by researchers.
Used one major landmark as a constant visual anchor to help players stay oriented in the open terrain.
Balanced exploration, combat, and environmental storytelling, rewarding attentive players with spatial and tactical information.
Focused on sightlines and points-of-interest (POI) control, revealing information only when relevant to maintain clarity and direction.
Implemented enemy placement for anticipation and readability, providing small early glimpses and full reveals when encounters become relevant.
Created a mix of anticipation, preparation, and player cleverness, encouraging strategic observation and engagement throughout the level.
