An action-platformer
Role: Level Designer
Bardo is a single-player platformer adventure game where you glide and jump through a realm of floating islands.
Working in a large team in close collaboration with artists led to numerous new learnings for me.
Team: 25
8 weeks
UE 5
Project Role:
Level Designer
Whitebox in UE5
Game research and sketching
Gliding sections
Platforming sections
Collab with artists
QA testing and iteration
Design documentation
About Bardo
Gliding
Platforming
Ranged beam
In this game you glide through the world of Bardo by using its magical winds, platform from rock to rock while evading dangers and collect Wisps that give you the power to shoot projectiles. By shooting crystals in the world you open Wind Tunnels and paths for yourself.
Bardo is about falling with style down dangerous tunnels, dodging rocks and floating enemies.
Overview
Workflow breakdown
In the ideation phase I concepted many different gameplay beats and level layouts on pen and paper, based on inspiration from game research.
I used these sketches to communicate ideas to my teammates and align our visions.
Sketching
Set up a gym level to measure the player metrics of jumping and gliding and figure out the most desirable distances.
Gym Level
Using the proper metrics I blocked out different gliding and platforming challenges then combined them into different layouts to experiment with pacing and difficulty scaling.
Blockout
Conducted internal and external playtests with clear questions and goals to find out if:
the level facilitates the core gameplay well
reaches the desired player experience
achieves a satisfying pacing
After playtests feedback was documented and organized into actionable points with priorities.
Testing
Feedback priorities
Project Work
Gliding Sections
Falling with Style
Bardo’s gameplay is based highly on a continuously moving player character. The player only has control over where they fall, steering left or right. Going from this the gliding sections I designed function as obstacle courses with hazards that require evading as wells as pickups placed in difficult-to-reach spots that create an extra layer of challenge.
Gliding section layout sketch
Gliding section progress
Height management
Bardo’s character controller allows only for flying downwards. By placing hazards below the player is required to maintain their height to survive. To achieve this they need to steer precisely towards landing areas or Wind Tunnels that take them higher up. The variety between falling and climbing up serves as the base for the level’s pacing.
Crystals: target shooting
Crystals are level ingredients appearing in the 2nd half of the game that provide an extra layer of challenge requiring precise aiming in a limited Bullet Time after pressing the button.
Gliding Section Breakdown
Platforming sections
A Grounded Experience
Blocked out platforming sections using the proper player metrics from the Gym level. These served to:
Onboard the player with the base platforming mechanics: jump, double jump, ranged attack
Provide a slower, more grounded experience between intense gliding gameplay beats, as was recognized to be necessary after playtesting feedback
Engage the player with jumping challenges
Facilitate exploration and reward the player’s curiosity
Jump+Glide onboarding section sketch
Screenshot paintover layout
Platforming progress
Tutorial sections
Teaching it all in a short time
Limited playtime and hard-to-learn mechanics required good tutorials to be in place. For this I:
Set up tutorial sections with prompt placements to onboard the player with every mechanic and gamepad control
Structured the pacing of level around the tutorials to avoid overwhelming the player
Communicated with concept artists and programmers to ensure clarity and readability in the visual prompts
Thoroughly playtested the sections with new players to ensure the understandability of the tutorials.
Tutorial layout sketch
Glide onboarding section in final
Visual Direction - Collab with Artists
Player navigation and the role of visuals
In a game based on a constant flow of movement where the character rarely stops moving it was crucial to not have that flow broken by moments of the player not finding the path forward. After such issues arose during playtests I recognized that the solutions lay in the visual communication of the game.
To leash the player along the Golden Path the visuals were crucial and to ensure that the game’s visual language is consistent and readable I kept close communication with the environment artists and conducted more playtests focused on finding out potential issues regarding visual clarity.
Visual communication in gliding section
Visual communication in platforming section
Design TEchniques
To solve readability and navigation issues that came up during playtesting, such as players not recognizing the intended path forward, I used
Lighting to give contrast between paths
Colors, materials and effects to differenciate between gameplay elements
Leading lines and bright-colored collectibles to guide players
Visual Leashing
There are many points in the game where the player is looking down from a cliff before jumping down. I used these points to:
Foreshadow upcoming sections
Serve as level design ingredients signalling points where the player is intended to jump off.
Vantage points
Under a short playtime of 15 minutes various different mechanics had to be onboarded to the player, then used to challenge them in surprising ways.
To create variety and an incerasing difficulty curve where challenges become introduced then combined into new ones, I blocked out different challenge segments, then arranged them in an order where they compliment and build on each other.
Pacing
Project reflection
Collaboration
This 8-week period working in a team has been a great learning experience in collaboration with other disciplines. I found out a tremendous amount about the perspectives, goals and workflow of environment artists and programmers while working close to them on the level.
After this project I feel like my communication skills improved a lot and I am able to solve many challenges that arise with cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Building natural terrain
Creating a level with natural terrain instead of man-made structures has also been a great opportunity to learn. From level concepting until hand-placing the rock assets I needed to adopt a new approach and a new workflow.
