A DAY WITH MOCHI
GAME OVERVIEW
In A Day With Mochi, you play as a cat called Mochi who just arrived on the island of San Felicete to take a vacation. You will take this opportunity to create chaos and cause mayhem while being a cute little devil. Your actions will be immortalized with unique polaroids. Creating those souvenirs will help you befriend the other cats on the island along the way.
DEVELOPMENT INFOS
Role - Lead Level Designer
Time - 9 months (2022 - 2023)
Team size - 11
Genre - Sandbox open-world
Type of project - School project
Tech - Unreal 5
Platform - PC (1 player)
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
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Creating the overall world and its navigation as a cat.
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Creating systemic puzzles and situations as workshops.
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Creating tools to help with the production like an asset kit.
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Creating a level design/level art pipeline.
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Managing the level designer/level art team.
DESIGN OVERVIEW
Pre-production phase
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We had 3 months of pre-production to refine the initial concept of the game: “play a cat on a touristic island and create chaos”. We had to prepare for the production phase to be as efficient as possible.
My first task was to find references for the level design and the level art.
We decided to use references of Nassau for our buildings and of Cinque Terre in Italy for the organic organization of the city, with the use of different heights. We created a Miro board to organize all our references. For example, we found references for the island layout but also for the exterior/interior style of the buildings we will create.
I also documented myself on how “only pedestrian” islands work and how they strive.
A part of our Miro board
After that, I worked on a benchmark about “How to guide the player in an open world”.
I chose 10 games that we could use as references during our production. Some were more important than others. For example, Stray and A Short Hike were two of the most valuable games in this benchmark.
I created different categories to base my research on, like Hints, World construction, or Quests.
Starting page of the benchmark
In the end, we found out that we had to separate our world into different zones with different purposes. For example a residential area and a harbor area. We also had to use a lot of landmarks of different sizes, the contrast between light and shadow, and distinguishable objects/paths to guide the player throughout our island.
Because we control a cat, we decided to limit the use of a HUD for the sake of immersion. The map of the island will be accessible in a separate menu.
Next we defined 3 strong pillars for our level design :
1. Reinforce the cat fantasy
​2. Create an open playground​
​3. Create an organic city with branching paths
We created the overall map. We began by drawing different 2D layouts of the island on paper which were quickly followed by 2D layouts and node maps on Excalidraw.
Excalidraw layouts of the island
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Node map for our different scopes
At this stage we tried to think of different elements like the height levels we could use on the island and the paths that the AI and Mochi can take and also some landmarks that we could use to guide the player, for example, a lighthouse.
Simultaneously I created a metrics map to see the different values we would use as level designers for creating our world. It could range from how high the cat could jump or how wide the street needed to be for a group of tourists.
This took a lot of discussion with the character designers and the level artists.
Metrics map for the game
After getting the metrics ready to use and the global idea of the map we decided to build it in Unreal Engine 5. It will be useful to have a better sense of scale and see the different changes we can make to have a better experience, for example with navigation.
First blocking of the island in UE5
We quickly iterated on it to have a more believable island with more height variations.
Second blocking of the island in UE5
In parallel, I launched the production of an asset kit that could help us gain time during production. The goal was to create different pieces like walls, roofs or grounds that we can assemble with each other to create buildings that respect the metrics and our reference like Nassau.
One of the first test for the asset kit
After some iterations, I obtained a good version of the kit that we could use for creating our buildings on the island. Here is what I did.
Asset kit on the global map
We also worked on the navigation around the island. The cat needs to be able to go around the island freely on the ground but also on rooftops. Here is a quick example:
Navigation sequence
After that, the deadline for our pre-production panel was close. I was tasked with creating a full workshop. The goal of the mission was to replace the bottle of toothpaste with a bottle of ketchup and let one of the AI brush their teeth with it.
I created a 2D layout on Excalidraw before going on Unreal Engine 5 to block it out with the asset kit. I added the AIs, programmed their behaviors and added the objects that will be usable by the player to distract them.
2D layout of the workshop
Workshop on the global map
Here is a quick sequence of gameplay that we showed at the beginning of our presentation.
Gameplay sequence
During this period of 3 months as a Lead Level designer, I made a big pass on the documentation so everyone can be up to date on the different aspects of the production phase, which include the Level designers / Level artists pipeline, the references we use, and how we will create the asset kit.
I also managed the Level Design and Level Artist team to find a good balance between art and design on the project. I organized some meetings to be sure we were always on the same page regarding the project. All of this work was used to facilitate the production phase.
Production phase [PART 1]
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After the pre-production we had 3 months to work on the game and iterate on what we presented with the feedback we were given.
One of the first things we did was to change our level design approach to the world, because we thought we were lacking control over the player experience. I did a presentation about the problems we encountered in our open world : lack of guidance, no macro-objective, no element that could block the player… There wasn’t a clear view of the challenges that we could propose to the player and more importantly, the scope was too large to be reachable.
One of the slides of the presentation
That seemed like a lot to me, so I took one week to document my process before talking to all the team members about it. That is what we obtained :
First of all, we decided to focus on the center of the island, no more full macro-map. The goal was to be more iterative on our design and polish one zone before beginning another one.
Designing a zone was now more guided. Each zone brings to light one or two systemic attributes of objects. A zone is made of different difficulty areas and landmarks. The activities in the easy area are used to lead the player to the medium one and the medium one to the difficult one.
Example of a complete zone
We added different rules like “A tutorial is always in the easy area” or “A player can always resolve a situation with an object around him, even if they can look for other ways to succeed”.
We also changed one of our intentions because it was something we lacked during the pre-production. The actions of the player needed to have consequences on the world and the AI living in it.
1. Reinforce the cat fantasy
​2. Create an open playground​
​3. Create an evolutive island
To help the level design team, I created different rational level design tools to help kickstart the new production phase for our level.
I discussed with the system designers to draw up a list of all the attributes an object could use and see what these attributes could provide for the player.
Example of all the water attributes
I also created a list of 80 challenges, combining different attributes, to see what we could use for our different missions.
Example of challenges we can use
My goal was to rationalize the difficulty and learning curves of each zone by considering different parameters.
In order to balance the difficulty, I put in place a spreadsheet that we could use to give each of our little activities a challenge rating depending on different elements like “the number of attributes to use” or “the number of AI present in the area”. That would help us see where an activity needed to be placed regarding its challenge rating and visualize, with a curve, if the challenge was not too important.
Balancing spreadsheet for all activities
Difficulty curve for a zone
As for the learning curve, because our zones were now used to teach one or two attributes, we could focus on delivering little situations that help the player understand those attributes.
Object learning for a zone
Learning curve for a zone
Depending on the learning curve, we also can determine the density of objects needed in the area. The more we want the player to learn about an attribute, the more we need to put objects with the latter so that they can encounter it repeatedly in different situations.
To finalize our change of scope, we created different shapes and sizes of buildings with the brand new asset kit that we’ve iterated on since the pre-production.
Different buildings with diverse sizes and shapes
We asked everyone to give us their feedback on the size and we tried to implement those changes in the new macro-map.
But we saw the problem. Despite saying that we should be more iterative, we couldn’t let go of the macro-map and that made us lose time, so we took a drastic approach on all the production poles: A game element has to be polished or it will not be in the production demo.
That forced the team to focus on fewer aspects of the game but in return, we could see what makes the fun in our game. See what happened to the macro-map
Macro before the rule
Macro after the rule
With this in mind, I had to integrate different elements into the game to have a complete experience.
I created one tutorial for the magnetic attribute :
Outside the magnetic workshop
Inside the magnetic workshop
I prepared one mission where the goal is to free a roombot from its room :
A quick resolution of the roombot situation
I also created the first placeholder version of the onboarding area :
The tutorial area
One of the many tutorial prompts
In each one of these elements, I had to create different blueprints to script situations and interactions.
Magnetic workshop validation process
Roombot mission validation process
In the meantime, the artist where working with the other level designer to create a coherent level combining art and design needs.
A turn around of the center of the island
Closing Phase
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Our first production phase helped us understand what made our game fun. We were given 3 months to produce a large quantity of content to let players craft their experience.
We began by quickly blocking 4 more districts so that each level designer would be able to create 2 different areas. We added the Harbor, the Park, the Residential Area and the Shopping District.
I worked on the Park, the Residential Area and the Harbor, which acts as the onboarding of the game.
As we defined before, each area is centered around a theme, for example, the Park focuses more on the electronic attribute and visually displays a lot more vegetation than the other districts.
We also added a landscape to surround the island and give a much more authentic look to it.
New island blocking
Blocking with landscape
After that, my biggest task was to create content for the game. I was responsible for the design and implementation of around 30 missions ranging from breaking some plant pots to setting a banner on fire to scare humans around it. All of them are here to encourage mischievous behavior.
Cat God polaroid BP
While simultaneously working on the navigation inside the district but also between each one of them. We wanted the player to always have access to different paths during the exploration phase.
We added a white outline on outside platforms to help the player plan his way to his next objective. We also used vegetation to serve as obstacles to the player.
Platforms with white outline
Blocking vegetation
For each zone we created, in collaboration with the level artists, one or two landmarks to help the player triangulate his position around the island.
Cat Tower
Traveler's plam
Furthermore, we created unique spots that also help the player on a smaller scale. For example, the florist shop displays a unique look.
Florist shop
Crab restaurant
Another type of landmark are the cats present around the island. Each cat will give a mission to the player so they act as little landmarks. Mochi can call them with a simple press of a button.
Calling your friends
The last few weeks were dedicated to playtesting the game and finding bugs or elements that we could fix quickly to deliver a polished experience. Those ranged from collision problems to game breaking bugs involving a lot of different elements.
I fixed a lot of different types of issues to give time to other members of the team to focus on other aspects of the game, for example creating more visual assets.
By following our pipeline and communicating with everyone the island turned out very nicely.
Welcome to San Felicete
POST MORTEM
WHAT WENT WELL :
​We had a clear vision of the game from the beginning and everyone never lost it during the project.
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During this project I could focus on the level design side of a game. I also tried a lot of different ways to work as a level designer.
WHAT DIDN'T GO WELL :
Despite creating clear and concise documentation, certain rules were not followed and that led to some issues we could have avoided.
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At the end of the project, a lot of pressure was put on the artist team, so one of my jobs was to take a lot of repetitive tasks and finish them to give more time to the artist to focus on more important tasks.
FINAL THOUGHTS :
In the end, we are proud of our work. We put a lot of ourselves inside this project and I loved working with each one of my teammates.
It was a pleasure to observe different people navigate San Felicete and experiment with the game system to create chaotic situations.
For me it was the best possible outcome to finish my masters degree!