Mission Designer

A single mission from a larger game made using the Unity 3D Game Kit. Explore a magical and alien wilderness looking for flowers for grandma.

  • Unity

  • Solo Project

  • Fall 2024

Unity 3D Game Kit:

“Little Red”

The Mission

Mission requirements:

  • The mission must be completable in 4-6 minutes

  • The mission must be moderately difficult for experienced players

  • 10 flowers must be collected to finish the mission

  • Only provided assets may be used

  • The mission must consist of primarily environmental challenges

This mission was one of three made as part of a larger game project made with the Unity 3D Game Kit. The full game was based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood and consisted of three missions with different goals and themes. The assets and mission goals were provided ahead of time and were mostly limited to the default alien planet theme and a few other pieces based on a Nordic forest environment.

This particular mission was a fetch mission, meaning the gameplay goal was to explore an environment and find 10 specific flowers. I designed the mission as a “hub and spoke” style level, with 4 linear segments that could be completed in any order then led to a 5th and final challenge. The flowers were spread evenly throughout, requiring the player to fully explore the environment.

My Role

Responsibilities:

  • Plan out mission structure, encounters, and environment

  • Sculpt terrain and place environmental assets to create a sense of place

  • Select and place enemies to challenge the player and slow progress

  • Playtest individual challenges and mission difficulty

As the mission designer of this game, I was given a set of requirements for the missions that could not be changed. These requirements included the range of expected time to complete the missions, the assets I was able to pull from, and the narrative setup of the missions. My job was then to make the most engaging and well-designed mission possible while also fulfilling these requirements.

The project taught me to do my best work while staying within the lines of someone else’s design and to learn to give up some creative control while still making the level my own. I also had to learn to work around the many issues of the game kit itself, as I wasn’t allowed to replace or fix any of the bugs in the technical side of the assets.

The Design Process

Step 1: Preproduction

Before I started working on the level itself, I began by planning out the mission from start to finish. This was done both to ensure that I wouldn’t miss any of the requirements and to speed up the actual work with a clear map and goal of what I wanted to build.

During preproduction, I created two maps of the level: one to explain the conceptual relationships between different themed areas and one to show the actual level layout. Much of the details were left undetermined, as I expected to change them as I built based on playtest feedback and what assets I could actually find to use.

I also defined every encounter based on its length and difficulty so I could start with an estimate of how long each segment of the game would take.

Step 2: Blockout

Once I had the level planned out, it was time to start building. Expecting the level’s layout to change frequently, I started with just the basic layout of where the challenges were and the paths between them. Because I was starting with premade assets I didn’t need to use blocks, but a lot of the assets were randomly chosen or simply dragged and dropped to create walls.

During this step, I only placed enemies where they would be necessary, as many of the ones placed in platforming challenges were mostly there for decoration. I also left out much of the more technical side of the level such as teleporters or cutscenes, electing to simply describe them to playtesters when necessary.

Step 3: test and iterate

With the basics of the level in place, I was able to start playtesting it. I tested with 4 different people throughout developing the mission, choosing a mix of designers familiar with the game engine and other people who had never touched it. One of the first things I learned is that I was really pushing the length of the mission, with only those experienced with the game able to complete it within the time limit. This led me to cut or shrink many sections or encounters.

I also added a lot of player guidance in this step, including lighting and cutscenes. This also worked to speed up play time, as players didn’t spend as much time figuring out where to go and could simply start going. By the end of this step, I was able to have a player go through the entire level in the way I intended without any input from me.

Step 4: polish

After playtesting to the point where I felt the level was playable and just the right difficulty, I could finally start making things look nicer. The first step was to play with various assets to set the scene and theme of each area better, including VFX like fog or shadows. I also added many extra decorations such as small foliage or distant mountains to make the environment feel more alive.

Finally, I added in the various assets and chunks of the level that were unnecessary to gameplay such as the top of the mountain cave or the forest beyond the playable boundary that blocked the line of sight to the map’s edges. With these things in place, I was done with the mission.

final step: turn it in!

With the level playable, decorated, and meeting all the requirements, I submitted the mission. It was graded very highly, with specific praise for the theming of the different environments and the variety of challenges. The final mission time was just barely under the maximum time allowed, which was expected, but I was definitely cutting it close.

Lessons learned:

  • Be careful not to overscope a mission just to include more variety. Always know what can be cut for time.

  • Playtest with the intended audience whenever possible

  • It’s easier to adjust an encounter based on technical limitations than fix bugs to make an encounter work

  • Dividing a level into smaller sections makes them much easier to test and iterate individually

  • Work with others on your team! Bugs in the enemy AI made my job as a mission designer harder