Internship - Paper Play VR
Level Designer - Remote Internship
Overview
During my mandatory internship semester at S4G, I completed a 3-month remote internship at Studio Moondowner, working on Paper Play VR - a social VR minigame collection for Meta Quest and PC VR built around co-op party games with a paper-craft look.
I joined as a Level Designer, but over the course of the internship I also contributed to Game Design (new features, research, and idea brainstorming), Modelling (simple concept models for further iteration), and Prototyping.
Responsibilities
- Worked as Level Designer on Paper Play VR's minigames, contributing to layout and player experience
- Contributed to Game Design: proposing new features, researching references, and brainstorming ideas
- Modelled simple concept props and geometry as a starting point for further iteration
- Actively tested mechanics and looked for bugs within them
Tools
- Unity - development
- Blender - 3D modelling
- Notion - documentation & brainstorming
- Miro - sketching & brainstorming
- Inkscape - 2D level layouts
- GitLab - version control
Level Design
I designed levels for three of Paper Play VR's minigames - Bullet Curve, Stone Skipper, and Ice Cream Taster - reworked the Main Hub, and designed new level features for the minigames along the way.
The studio's pipeline was built around Inkscape: a level's 2D top-down layout was drawn there, and a single hotkey in Unity converted it straight into a playable 3D layout. That made iteration fast - a layout change was a few clicks away from being testable in VR.
Bullet Curve
2D Layout
3D Environment
I first started making each level as 2D top-down layouts thinking about player movement, visibility, covers in the game, and where to place objectives. All design decisions were made in a way that offered different ways in which players could accomplish the missions, thereby allowing them to use stealth techniques in completing the levels or choice a more aggressive route.
The 2D layouts were then converted into playable 3D environments, where I tested and iterated on enemy placement, sightlines, cover, and overall pacing.
Stone Skipper
2D Layout
3D Environment
I started making 2D layouts of all Stone Skipper levels to see how each level would be organized, where each obstacle would be positioned, and which path players could take to achieve the goal. I wanted to make sure the level allows for several paths to be used, so players would have fun trying out different approaches, producing an effective variant that enables them to achieve the goal in the smallest number of throws. I had to think about the bouncing of the stone off various objects and the way in which each obstacle can change its movement direction.
Having settled on the layouts, I moved from 2D levels to 3D levels. This helped me to test the levels, game design, and movement of the stone itself, making sure that all the paths allow for the intended and rewarding gameplay.
Game Design
During brainstorming sessions, I wrote up new ideas and mechanics in as much detail as I could, so the CEO could fully understand the concept behind each one - covering things like new enemy types, core loops, and new multiplayer modes for potential future minigames.
I also researched the title screens of other party and co-op games as a reference when discussing the direction for Paper Play VR's own title screen.
3D Modelling
I was responsible for creating some simple 3D designs to be used for the props and game mechanics I was working on in the process of ideas development, which included a watergun, a hopper, a needleboard, a spiral tube, and a chaos tubes. I wanted to keep the models simple and quick to produce as they needed to be used for the review of my idea in 3D and give something real to the team for assessment early in time.
Once a theory was approved, it was passed for further detailing and improvement or used as a temporary model while the function was being prototyped and tested in action.