Demmy Mangusso
Game Designer
Romancelvania
Company
The Deep End Games
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Link
Company Website | Steam | Kickstarter
Role
Level Designer
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Team Size
20+ person indie team
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Duration
January 2022 - May 2022 (Contract)
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Contributions
- Concepted and created multiple areas with differing design goals, feel, and mechanics
- Wrote detailed documentation for laying out flow, mechanics, and tools used in designing levels
- Communicated with design lead and programmers for factoring in level goals and keeping scope in mind
- Created new level assets with Blueprints in Unreal to meet needs of levels
Description
Romancelvania is a metroidvania with an added dating game twist. You play as Drac, a vampire bachelor trying to find the right partner. Using his platforming abilities alongside your arsenal of weaponry and magic to navigate your castle and beyond, help Drac find their true love!
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I was contacted by Deep End Games about interest in doing level design work, and accepted the short-term contract. For me this was a great opportunity to expand my design knowledge in a professional setting, and improve on an area of design I wanted to learn more about.
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The role involved me blocking out new levels, with the two I got to work on being a auto-running chase sequence and a lightning-based level where the player needs to be under platforms to avoid damage. Both considered different ways of designing levels including the player's available actions, the challenge out of the player's control, and the pathing required that suites both.
For the auto-scrolling level, branching paths were used as an inclusion of risk-reward. The higher paths are somewhat less risky but garner not as much reward, while the lower paths have great incentive to follow even with the trickier challenges. With the lightning level, the level is sequenced from long runs to avoid the lightning to areas where lightning is not a factor, and then back to lightning again and so on. The player has to manage enemies in both, with them needing to manage their navigation in open areas by finding cover in platforms while still fighting enemies.
The contract had ended before I was able to make complete versions of each level due to circumstances out of anyone's control. With the time I had working with Deep End Games, I obtained valuable level design experience while making a great impact on the future development of Romancelvania. I believe this opportunity has set me up for being valuable to the next team and project that I am on, wherever that may be.
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Romancelvania is still in development, with the intention for a 2022 release.