Neko Nightmares 

The terrible horrors of a lazy cat forced to get a job. 

Second Year Industry Portfolio at Escape Studios

Overview: 

A casual puzzle game that focuses on exploring the idea of being a cat in an unknown town, tasked to help the cat folk refill their 'pawntain' that powers the town with milk. Forced from the comfort of your home, you play as a kitten trying to survive in the adult world by wading through sewers, digging on beaches, and scaling mountains. 

My Role: 

For my game design specialisation, I chose to focus on level design, which examines how a game's level environment harmonises with the intended gameplay mechanics, and how metrics determine where certain mechanics would be used. As well as this, I had to develop industry-standard map flows and pacing throughout the demo level. For this level design, I primarily wanted to focus on the scale of the world and how it compared to the third-person character, looking at architectural importance and spatial understanding. We were given 5 weeks from the module introduction to submission date to develop our work, in which I produced a 2-level module broken down into 4 sections in the main level with minor game play mechanics to accompany it as well. 

Key Mechanic Inputs: 

E - Interact 

P - Pause game

R - Shrink 

Left Shift - Sprint 

Space Bar - Double Jump

Developer Notes:

This piece helped me understand how I can improve on later portfolio works and where I went wrong in my development process, as there were many instances in which I lacked the proper technical skills, but made up for it in the end. I'm happy with where I am starting in my level design development journey, as this project sets the base benchmark for my future work.