Rik Boerma - Level / Game Designer
LUISA'S MANOR
ROLE
Technical Level Designer
GENRE
Puzzle / Adventure
MADE WITH
Unreal Engine 5
Luisa's Manor is a recreation of the core puzzle mechanics of Luigi's Mansion 3, focusing on the vacuum mechanic and related interactables from the original game. For this project my tasks included researching the original game, scripting the player abilities and level ingredients, documenting these features, building a blockout kit and designing a demo level.
The main focus was on the following three areas:
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3C's: Recreating the basic 3C's from Luigi's Mansion 3 to feel close to the original game.
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Level ingredients: Recreating several of the most important level ingredients from the original game that show the gameplay potential.
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Modularity: As the goal of this assignment was to prove my prototyping skills, everything was built to be modular and easily expandable.
Demo Level
Layout
I designed a simple demo level to show the potential of the systems I recreated. The level is divided into four sections: the playground, simple puzzes, intermediate puzzles and a slightly more advanced puzzle in the final section.
Playground
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A small, open playground without puzzles to solve
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Various objects scattered around, including a bowling alley, to encourage the player to play around with and get accustomed to the vacuum mechanics.
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Teaches the player that objects behave differently: Some are light and will be destroyed upon being sucked up, while others are heavier and can be carried around and put down or launched.
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The way forward is clearly visible through a stone arch so the player knows they can continue whenever they like.
Simple puzzles
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A series of rooms connected by doors the player will have to open with switches.
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Teaches the player about pullable switches and shootable switches.
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The first door is located right next to the switch that opens it, without other distractions, clearly communicating to the player what to interact with and what the outcome is.
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Reinforces launchable objects or teaches them if the player has missed them before.
Intermediate Puzzle
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A large room with a rotatable platform in the middle, allowing the player access to different parts of the room.
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Introduces the player to rotatable switches.
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Combines different mechanics, taking the vacuum mechanics to the next level.
Final Puzzle
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A large room with multiple rotatable platforms that the player will have to rotate to form a path to the other side.
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Employs multiple rotatable platforms at once, increasing the challenge.
Blockout Kit
Blockout Kit
Following a tutorial series, I built several low-poly wall elements, pillars, floor tiles and props in Blender to use in the level. Although simple and low-detail, they are distinct enough to give the level a sense of identity and to communicate the design goal to hypothetical artists. Each asset is very modular, as they are comprised of repeated assets that have been easily altered to create some variation, and fit together seemlessly. Using this kit, I also made a test room where I experimented with a lighting setup.
Scripting Level Ingredients
Recreating Level Ingredients
Based on my research, I recreated the following level ingredients, which can be seen in action in the showcase on the right.
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Vacuumable objects: Can be sucked up and destroyed or carried around, and dropped or launched, depending on the selected properties of the object.
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Pullable switches: Can be pulled, then released to activate moving objects.
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Shootable switches: Can be hit with a launchable object to activate moving objects.
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Rotatable switches: Can be blown or vacuumed to rotate one way or the other, causing a rotating platform to rotate in the same direction.
Modular Setups
Every element was made to be modular, easily expandable and use friendly. For this purpose, the vacuumable objects are managed through a data table, where all properties can easily be assigned to any new object types the user wants to add.
This way, a level designer can easily add specific objects without having to worry about assigning the properties consistenly every time.
Similarly, switches and the actors they control are easy to set up.
Research
Level Ingredient Research
I defined the scope of this project by starting with researching the level ingredients from the original game. I grouped them together into different categories and analyzed how exactly they work. Based on this research, I picked a few ingredients to recreate.
Metrics Research
To recreate the feeling of the original game, I researched the most important metrics of the vacuum system, namely its range and maximum and minimum angles. I then replicated these to easily create a feeling familiar to anyone who played the original game.
Level Ingredient Research
I defined the scope of this project by starting with researching the level ingredients from the original game. I grouped them together into different categories and analyzed how exactly they work. Based on this research, I picked a few ingredients to recreate.
How-to Documentation
How-to document
To help other people to use and expand the project, I created a how-to document. In this document, each page is dedicated to a seperate topic and contains a step-by-step guide, complete with images, gifs and videos, to make it as easy as possible for users to quickly understand the content.
Takeaways
Metrics Research
To recreate the feeling of the original game, I researched the most important metrics of the vacuum system, namely its range and maximum and minimum angles. I then replicated these to easily create a feeling familiar to anyone who played the original game.
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Puzzle Design: Although the demo level is brief, I got to design several puzzles for it, based on the mechanics I had prototyped and inspired by the puzzles of the original game. These constraints ended up forming a very helpful lesson for me in focusing on the essentials by finding the most core mechanics of the puzzles of the original game, and building from there.
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Modular Prototyping: I refined my visual scrypting skills by recreating the core mechanics of the original game and also focused on making everything modular. This included commenting code and setting everything up to be easily expandable and implementable.
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Modular blockout kit: I developed my 3D modeling skills by developing a modular kit for the game in Blender with a focus on making them easily fit together.
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Game Research: To recreate the core mechanics of the original game, I researched the game in-depth and wrote a detailed analysis of it. This taught me much about doing game analyses, focusing not only on the player experience but also on the technical functionality of each mechanic.
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Documentation: As this project focused on modularity, I wrote both my research and how-to documents to be as user-friendly as possible by regularly asking for and interating on feedback.