Path to the Hidden Temple
Solo Level Designer & Game Designer
Overview
My solo level design project - inspired by Uncharted and Tomb Raider - was created using Unreal Engine 5 to complete my final thesis for S4G Berlin. I created the level using a pre-existing modular gameplay framework as the basis for building the level. During the making of the level, I primarily concentrated on the players’ guidance, pacing, and storytelling through the environment. I came up with three interrelated environmental levels; jungle, cave, and temple that integrated the concepts of exploration, movement, and fighting.
Goal
The goal was to create a clear progression of player experience - from exploration, through rising tension, to a climactic encounter - using only space, lighting, and pacing to carry the player through it, rather than UI prompts or dialogue.
Learnings
- Completing the full pipeline of creating a level alone: from planning through design and development to finishing
- Working within an existing framework where you create interesting gameplay without the use of custom mechanics
- Directing the player through level design: using light, architecture, and the environment to navigate rather than UI markers
- Making complete sense in each of the three locations where players experience a steady increase in difficulty compared to the narrative
- Organizing a formal playtest and use each observation (e.g. deaths, confusion, pacing) for further improvements
- Keeping the documents (High Concept, production plan, playtest notes) updated as the level is being done and modified
Tools & Assets
- Unreal Engine 5 - development
- Concepts - 2D layout sketching
- Miro - brainstorming & moodboards
- Notion - documentation
- Modular Gameplay Framework (Jakub W.) - base gameplay systems
- Blockout Starter Pack - grey-box level geometry
- POLY - Medieval Camp - camp structures & set dressing
- Low Poly Nature: Essentials - jungle vegetation & foliage
- Good Sky - sky and atmosphere
- Ancient Temple Middle-East Wall Relief - temple wall detailing
Research & Design Process
Before blocking out the level, I analyzed reference levels found in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and the Tomb Raider series. I took apart each reference level by looking at factors such as pacing, player guidance, and encounter design and obtained information which was used for three areas I planned for the game.
Level Sketches & Documentation
Concept development started with a High Concept document defining the level's narrative premise and a player-experience arc moving from exploration to tension to a climactic encounter, followed by a gameplay timeline mapping encounter intensity, mechanic introductions, and transition points across the three areas.
In this 2D layout for the Jungle Area, I focused on an open environment with multiple traversal paths so the player could explore freely from the very start. Enemy presence was kept low and mostly optional, letting the space teach basic movement and orientation before anything more demanding. The goal was to build player confidence with the controls before the pacing tightens up in the Cave Area.
This 2D layout maps the Cave Area as a set of narrow, confined spaces with limited visibility, a deliberate contrast to the Jungle Area's openness. I placed multiple combat encounters here, including the level's largest single fight, to create real pressure and test the player's combat skills. The tighter geometry was meant to build tension through space alone, before the Temple Area opens back up.
The Temple Area's 2D layout is built vertically rather than horizontally, introducing the grappling hook as a new traversal option. I kept the enemy count lower than the Cave Area but pushed encounter complexity instead, spreading fights across multiple height levels. The final encounter was designed to test everything the player had learned about movement and combat up to that point.
Layout & Development
Blockout began with plain grey-box geometry across all three areas, focused on testing scale, readability of the main path, and whether the modular framework's traversal mechanics - ledge climbing, crouch/crawl, sliding, and the grappling hook - felt natural in the space before any lighting or dressing was applied.
This phase was also where the level's core encounters were placed: an early, weapon-less enemy group in the Jungle Area designed purely around avoidance, a first controlled shooting encounter in the Cave Area once the player has a weapon, the level's largest fight in the Cave Area's main room, and a final Temple encounter that spreads enemies across multiple height levels to force vertical awareness rather than just adding more enemies.
Once the layout held up, I moved on to lighting and readability across all three areas: local lights, contrast, and framed openings to pull the player's eye toward landmarks and the main path - especially in the Cave Area, where darkness had to stay atmospheric without making the space unreadable, and in the Temple Area, where the dome reads as a clear vertical landmark from a distance.
Environmental storytelling was layered on top of the same beats - crates, lamps, and abandoned equipment in the Cave Area suggesting the space is occupied, and the Temple Area's scale and structures reinforcing that the player has reached the level's final destination - so the space communicates its own story without relying on dialogue or cutscenes.
Playtesting & Iteration
- 1
Playtest #1 - 18 min, 4 deaths
The first session surfaced five readability issues: an unreadable first enemy encounter the player was meant to avoid, an alternate-path ledge placed high enough to cause accidental deaths, an overly open first combat room with no cover, cave lighting too dark to read the space, and enemies detecting the player too quickly to react. Three of the four deaths were from falling, not combat.
- 2
Playtest #2 - 21 min, 8 deaths
After adjusting lighting, cover, and detection timing, the second session surfaced four more issues: cave lighting still too dark in places, a confusing fork in the Jungle Area's main path, pickups that weren't noticeable enough, and a grappling hook point placed too close to a cliff edge. Deaths shifted from mostly falling to mostly combat (5 of 8), showing the traversal fixes were working but combat pacing still needed tuning.
- 3
Achieved Goals & What's Next
The finished level delivers a full, playable structure across all three areas with a readable progression, lighting- and landmark-driven guidance, four distinct combat encounters, and environmental storytelling that carries the space without dialogue. With more time, the next priorities would be a checkpoint/respawn system, more environmental storytelling objects, interface hints for interactables, and further polish on the cave's lighting balance - and the project's answer to its own research question: a pre-built framework can be a strong foundation for a single-player level, but it doesn't create the player experience by itself, that still comes entirely from how the mechanics are placed, guided, and paced.