Thalia Wilson
Gameplay & Level Designer
Game a Week
Honours Project || 9 Games
This is my honours project, in which I made as many games as I could over the semester. The project was to help me improve my rapid ideation and prototyping skills, but it has also helped me develop countless skills over the semester. So far, I have made a total of nine games.
Zombies: Serve and Volley
Unreal | Group Project | Level Design
This game was by Raccoon Mochi Games for our client and mentors at Sharkmob. Zombies: Serve & Volley is a zombie survival high score chaser where the player attempts to beat back the endless hordes of zombies with their trusty tennis rackey & ball.
Grappling Hook
Unreal | Mechanic Design | Level Design
I made this for a module at Abertay to help increase my knowledge of level and mechanic design and give me more experience with Unreal Engine's blueprints system.
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Copyright © 2024 - Thalia Wilson - All Rights Reserved
About Me
Gameplay & Level Designer
Skills
Teamwork
Communication
Scripting (C#, Blueprints, GML)
Game Engines (Unity, Unreal, Game Maker)
Task Prioritising
Gameplay Design
Level Design
Ideation
Iteration
Resilience
Documentation
Hi ya, I’m ThaliaI am a game designer in my 4th year at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. I am particularly interested in gameplay and level design. During my time here, I have studied & practised a range of game disciplines in both modules and extracurricular activities. From art modules that taught me the basics of art and modelling to Abertesters, giving me experience in quality assurance and plenty of game jams to improve my design skills. Thanks to this, I understand what pipelines each discipline uses and how game design fits into them. In recent years, I have focused on gameplay and level design, focusing on learning and honing my skills in those subjects.
Naturally, I love playing games alone and with friends during my free time. Recently, I have particularly enjoyed 2D platformers like Celeste and Metroidvanias, having recently played through Hollow Knight. Due to a deal with a friend, I have started to play through Final Fantasy XIV’s campaign, and while it is not typically my cup of tea, I have been enjoying it. I also practice archery in my free time; I try to make sure I shoot at least a couple of hours each week to destress and make sure games do not dominate my life.
Game a Week
Honours Project || 9 Games
This is my honours project, in which I made as many games as I could over the semester. The project was to help me improve my rapid ideation and prototyping skills, but it has also helped me develop countless skills over the semester. So far, I have made a total of nine games.
Week 1 – Build a Tower – Theme: Set it Up
Week 2 – Collapsing Hexagon -Theme: Advancing Wall of Death
Week 3 – Recoil Rush - Theme: Unconventional Weapon
Week 4 – Two Pieces Make a Whole – Theme: 2 to 1
Week 5 – A Fair Race – Theme: Genre without Mechanic
Week 6 – Hit for a Hit – Theme: Hit for a Hit
Week 7 – Incomplete Dungeon Crawl Game – Theme: Infinite
Week 8 - Space Station Defence – Theme: 10 Seconds
Week 9 – Lasers! Explosions! & Wind! – Theme: Periodic
Build a Tower
Collapsing Hexagon
Recoil Rush
Two Pieces Make
A Whole
A Fair Race
Hit For A Hit
Incomplete Dungeon
Crawl Game
Space Station
Defence
Lasers! Explosions!
& Wind!
Lessons Learnt
Having even a little documentation helps
Finding a way to plan your week that works for you is priceless
Having a Library of code and assets saves so much time
Being able to modify old code for your purposes is great
The last 10% takes forever and is full of small boring tasks
Don’t focus on unimportant features; getting the core mechanic down is far more important
Small changes can have the largest of impacts
Taking a break can be far more productive than spending that time on the project
Make sure to get feedback whenever you can. Frequently I would get so focused on making a game that I would never get it played test. While this is not something I got particularity good at, its something I am aware of and improving at
Simple is good - a simiple solution time that can be spent elsewhere, as long as it works thats great.
Aesthetics & Polish cannot save a bad design but can make a good design great
Learning to enjoy the process is much better than loving the outcome. One I learnt this I found it much easier to focus on development and made better games because of it.
Improved Skills
Game Design
Gameplay Design
Programming - C#
Game engine usage
Documentation
Debugging
Ideation
Prototyping
Written Communication
Scheduling
Problem-Solving
Creative Thinking
Time Management
Reflection
Evaluation
Learning
Zombies: Serve and Volley
Unreal | Group Project | Level Design
This game was by Raccoon Mochi Games for our client and mentors at Sharkmob. Zombies: Serve & Volley is a zombie survival high score chaser where the player attempts to beat back the endless hordes of zombies with their trusty tennis rackey & ball.Raccoon Mochi Games created this game for our clients and mentors at Sharkmob. Zombies: Serve & Volley is a zombie survival high-score chaser in which the player attempts to beat back the endless hordes of zombies with their trusty tennis racket and ball. It was created in Unreal Engine 5 with a team of 8 developers.
The team:
Alicja Mrozek (Concept Artist / UI Designer)
Amber Berwick (3D Artist / Animator)
Berenika Zemanek (3D Artist / Technical Artist)
Connor Pegg (Producer / Narrative Designer)
Duncan Rendall (Programmer / Audio Programmer)
Samuel Yip (Audio Designer / Game Designer)
Tadas Raudonis (Programmer / Game Designer)
Thalia Wilson (Level Designer / Game Designer)
Responsibilities:
Level Design
Game Design
Helped with UI
Helped with QA & Playtesting
Things that went well
The level improved massively thanks to the feedback from my teammates, our client and playtesters.
The level comprises small sections of towns, each of which is made up to take advantage of the gameplay mechanics. The field is wide and open, with a small mound to create differences in vertical height. The buildings create an enclosed area perfect for bouncing the ball off walls. The streets are long, narrow areas with obstacles to avoid walking into. The trees provide a surface that makes it harder to predict how the ball will bounce off it.
Several elements to create different levels of verticality. You can get on top of some builds and jump on top of most obstacles, such as cars.
The rough UI sketch’s and prototypes that I made helped Alicia when she created the final UI for the game.
Lessons learnt
I need to remember the inspiration for the level to some degree. The level was based on UK towns, but the level structure felt too organised for that.
A major lesson learnt was how decorating a level can impact experience and gameplay. The decorations I placed on the level were all functional: objects to bounce the ball off and cars for zombies to walk around. After the art pass, I saw playtesters use the new decorations to their advantage, while some needed altering a lot of the new decorations helped give the game a new breath of life.
Throughout the project, I got too focused on the level design and did not help that much with the game design. In future, I need to ensure I don’t solely focus on one area as it puts more pressure on my teammates to pick up the slack.
While I was not the producer, there were problems in the team that I should have helped solve or ensured were solved. One example was that Connor, our producer, was overwhelmed with additional client deliverables that were focused on game production. While I helped with these near the end of the project, I should have helped earlier before Connor started facing burnout. Additionally, due to personal reasons our main programmer Duncan had to spend a couple of weeks away from the project. As a result, Tadas was overwhelmed with programming & gameplay tasks, which I could have helped. I recognise that I had my own tasks to complete, but the impact both Connor & Tadas overworking had on the team hurt the game too much not to be reduced in hindsight.
Grappling Hook
Unreal | Mechanic Design | Level Design
This project was made in Unreal Engine 5 as part of DES311, a self-directed module that allowed us to focus on a discipline of game development and improve our skills in it. During this project, I worked by myself to create a mechanic and level, focusing on improving my level design and gameplay design skills.
Things that went well
The grappling hook feels amazing to use.
Gained much experience with Unreal’s Blueprinting system.
Explored interesting idea of a level
Majority of playtesters enjoyed the game, and all playtests provided helpful feedback.
Lessons Learnt
Some problems are not worth solving because they have a small impact on the player experience and require much time to fix.
Often, when a player’s feedback complains about something, it’s a symptom of another issue.
There is a skill difference between the developer and first time player