Alexander Cocoles
Level Design
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The Design and Implementation of Environmental Physics Puzzles
For my thesis, I wanted to exhibit my
technical prototyping and level design
skills hand-in-hand, focusing on puzzle
gel’s use cases.
design. The final goal of the project was The process started with research into the
utilize a new mechanic in the setting of resources available before diving into the
to create a set of compelling levels that
Portal 2. I selected this game because the
documentation for Source is robust and I
was attracted to puzzle design.
engine. I wanted to get familiar with the
implementation of the new feature. After
a month of in-editor experimentation, I
began to implement my mechanic.
For my research, I played through and Following another month of prototyping
specifically Portal 2. I noticed similar could begin level design. My first wave of
analyzed several 3D puzzle games,
patterns in most of the games. From these
patterns, I distilled a list of considerations
that can be used to help future designers
build levels for puzzle games.
I used the Hammer editor and Portal 2
mod kit to build a new mechanic. The new
mechanic was a sticky gel that acted like
Portal’s current gels but caused physics
objects to stick to it. Putting the list of
considerations to the test, I designed and
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built four levels that showcase the sticky
LEVEL DESIGN
the sticky gel, I got to a point where I
five levels took two months. During this
time, I ran two playtest sessions which
helped me iterate my mechanic and level
design. The levels were put to a redesign,
which resulted in the four final levels.
I continued to run three more playtest
sessions, each leading to refinements
small and large resulting in the final
product.