Bolt Runner
Bolt Runner is a 2.5D Action Platformer inspired by games like Donkey Kong Country, 2D Metroid and 2D Sonic. Take control of an electric robot who can run, shoot, grapple, and break through floors in a fast paced Platformer with an emphasis on arcade like shooting, and unique foreground-background focused levels.
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Bellow is a breakdown of my Level Design production workflow through development of the project
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Creative Director and Producer which meant keeping the team focused, adhering to Design Pillars, and ensuring common team vision.
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Designed all 4 main ‘Action Stages’ and ‘Bonus Stages’ from concept to block out to hand over to artists.
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Programming including Game Design prototypes including Falling Pillars, Targets, and Bounce pads with Unreal Visual Scripting.
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Collaborated with programmers, UI designers, and musicians on the team to polish these prototypes, ensure level feel was kept intact, and all important information was conveyed to the Player.
Responsibilities:
Action Stage 3 - On the Rails
For this level, I wanted to focus on the speed element of our game the more than difficulty than previous levels.
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The focal mechanic of the level was Grind Rails with points to reach higher pathways in combination with our Falling Pillars which can destroy the Rails.
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Crumbling platforms were also used heavily as a way to keep the player active, and increase difficulty.
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Below is an example of my production workflow
- Production workflow -
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1 Action Stage completely designed with Level Design took a full week.
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starts with a day or two of planning what gimmicks would be featured, ideas with teammates, hand drawings, planning in Draw.io
- Draw.io concepts -
- Blockmesh -
- Thought process and inspiration behind production workflow -
The games that inspired the Level Design of the project were:
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Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze: multiple stage gimmicks that interact with each other in each level and the use of the Foreground and Background for more involved Level Design.
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Various 'Modern (Boost Formula) Sonic' games in how its Level Design keeps the player active at all times.
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alternative pathways the player can take if they use their speed effectively during presented action blocks.
Multiple gimmicks
at once.
Multiple pathways
at once.
Example of the Sonic inspiration in Stage 3:
Inspired by an Action Block from Sonic Frontiers: Player sees the pillar in the background they can reach with the Bounce Pad.
In Bolt Runner, they see two rails around a pillar. If they use an air dash and act quickly on the crumbling platform, they can take a higher pathway.
Inspiration
New Twist: 2 rails, 2 pathways
If Player took Path A, the normal route, they can see in the background, Path B, telling them they might have missed out on a chance to reach it. Prompting Replayability.
Donkey Kong Inspiration: levels feature interplay with mechanics.
Commonly, levels will have mechanics that will be introduced separately, then interact with each other. In DK's case:
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A - Water Fruits to put out fire
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B - Swinging on Vines
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A + B - Water Fruits put out fires on the Vines.
In Level 3's case, the Grind Rails are combined with the Falling Pillars to break the rail, potentially blocking off an alternative route.
Use in Bolt Runner: Combined mechanics PLUS, Sonic design where an Alternative Path is involved as a reward for playing well
In Level 3's case, the Grind Rails are combined with the Falling Pillars to break the Rail, potentially blocking off an alternative route if the player isn't quick enough.
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A - Falling Pillars
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B - Grind Rails
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A + B - Falling Pillars fall and destroy Grind Rails.
By the end, I was most satisfied with this level, and feel it encapsulated the Donkey Kong and Sonic hybrid level design methodology I was inspired by the best.
- Workflow for Bonus Stages -
If the player collects all S.P.E.E.D Tokens within a Level, they'll get a chance to play a short, difficult, focused Bonus Stage to earn a chance at unlocking an Upgrade.
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1 Bonus Stage completely designed with planning, and block out took 3 days each.
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starts with a day of planning what gimmicks would be featured, ideas with teammates, hand drawings, planning in Draw.io
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1 - 2 days of block mesh/placing art assets
These levels were designed quickly, and were inspired more by traditional, Mario focused design of 1 mechanic.
Bonus Stage 1 - Crumbling Platforms
For this level, I built it around Crumbling Platforms to:
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1. Keep with our theme of fast paced action and keeping the player moving.
2. explore dynamics that would teach them all about how crumbling platforms acted.
3. create a more short and sweet challenge
Teaching the player of the platforms' life span
Difficult challenges.
Through a few uses of moments of falling down pits, air dashes to safety, and keeping the player going, I made a rapid fire method of developing all of the bonus stages for the final product.