Full Commented Gameplay
If you want a summary of what the game is and how I made this level in a friendly and commented way, watch the video below.
If you want to know more details about the level, keep scrolling down, I'm sure you'll love learning about my entire level design process.
Overview
Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising is a 3D Beat 'em up action game where you need to choose between the 3 rival Karate Dojos from Eagle Fang, Cobra Kai or Miyagi-do, and alongside your sensei, start training, recruiting and fighting to prove who’s the most powerful dojo and seal your destiny as the Grand Champion of the All Valley Tournament.
In this project, I took on the role of Level Designer, so in the approximate period of 1 year and a half I was responsible for work in a team of 1 to 3 level designers throughout the project. Together we developed a total amount of 13 3D levels, which were used in the 4 main game modes.
Throughout the project I have built 7 blueprints, made the blockout of 6 levels, 4 level prop placements, 2 minigames, and I was involved in the balancing, bug fixing and implementation of systems of all levels.
LEVEL NAME: Arcade & Minigolf
DURATION: 2 months.
SOFTWARES USED: Unity & Google Draw & Unity Pro Builder
Search and Moodboard
When starting any level, I always do some case research, looking for image references from known locations that have something to do with the mood and aesthetics of the level I'm creating. In this Cobra Kai project, I was also able to study in depth the series itself that exists on Netflix and study the specific episodes that appeared in Arcade and Minigolf locations that would be useful for us to use as a reference for this level.
Furthermore, I create a Moodboad, with several images, in this case, images taken from the series and images I found on the internet too, so that we have a large "image bank" to use as a reference, not only for the creation of the prototype as well, as to help the 3D Environment team build the entire artistic aesthetic of what the level will actually look like.
Unfortunately I haven't saved the image of the Moodboard that was created, but I used some of these reference images again to create the level's Blueprint, so you can see some of these references in the next section below.
Blueprint (top down map)
In the first image on the side, we can find the first sketch I made for this level, which was made after a first KickOff meeting that I had with the main people responsible for each area of the game.
In this first definition, after my search for references and creation of the level's MoodBoard, I came to the conclusion that we would have 3 main areas in this level.
Firstly, the Arcade itself, where we would have several games and themed areas in the same arcade style. We would then have an area for Minigolf that would also be indoor, since after my research, I found several types of Indoor Minigolf that fit well with the series' reference and also with what we wanted to do for the game. Furthermore, we would have another Laser Tag area, referring to the place where we would place Boss Yasmine, since in the series, this is a place of conflict between the characters and that would be very good for the Boss's narrative development at this level.
With that in mind, I decided that the Boss would be in the center of the level, and the player would need to walk around the Laser Tag location (where the Boss is located), so that he could find a hidden passage behind the Laser Tag.
This was a cool experience to create, because every time the player is walking around the level, there are always some windows and doors that are transparent and show the location of the Laser Tag, creating this incentive for the player to explore the location. and at the same time see his final point of meeting a well-known character from the series, which is Yasmine.
After a new conversation with the team, I developed the Blueprint with more details and caption, and finalized it as shown in the second image on the right.
First Blueprint Sketch
Final Blueprint
White Blocking
Continuing my production of the level, my next step was to create the White Blocking of the level directly in Unity. With this initial blocking, it is possible to visualize the level in the 3D world quickly and effectively so that we can test the game's initial systems directly on the level itself. In addition to obviously visualizing the layout of the world in relation to the character and their movement in game.
In my White Blocking processes, I like to follow the Blueprint that I made previously, as I can have a good understanding of how the entire level space will work.
My focus is to make a Blueprint without worrying about the exact size of the level space, since this understanding of space in relation to the player I will have more precisely within the Engine.
This way, when I start the process in 3D, I like to first create the floor and walls of the level, to be able to easily see the base space where the player will walk. After having a more precise dimension of this main information, I will add more details to White Blocking.
Depending on how much time I have to make the level, I usually add as much detail as possible to the level in terms of lighting, textures that I would like to have on the floor and walls, details on the wall such as decals and 3D objects in general.
Furthermore, the 3D models that I add to the level, in general, I usually leave as faithful as possible to the size of real objects, so that when we move on to the PropPlacement part, it is possible to add very faithful 3D assets by blocking the level, not having much size problems when we change the blocking to the final level.
Last but not least, generally after the final blocking is ready, we have already started the process of adding some base systems to the level, as the main idea of every White Blocking creation of a level is to really be able to test the systems directly in this final level prototype.
Documentation
After finishing the White Blocking, I move on to the next step, which is documenting all the level information in a Level Design Document (LDD) where the entire team has access to the document and the most important information about the level.
In this document I detail the most important information such as Level Overview, Blueprint, Concepts, Moodboard, white blocking screenshots, etc. In addition to all these points, I add several "Requests" sessions for the different teams we have in the company.
The 3D Environment team it is the team that uses this document the most, as I request the 3D models that must be essential for creating the map, and as I have already created the level blocking and have the dimensions in Blocking, I can add all this very detailed object information, so that the 3D team can create the models in a very smooth and easy way.
Systems
At this level I didn't participate much in the production of the Prop Placement because I had to rush to start the production of another level, so, after delivering the documentation to the 3D Environment team, they started the Prop Placement of the level and I returned to work on it in the systems implementation part.
Receiving the level back from the 3D Environment team, I was responsible for implementing and positioning several enemies and resources that are present in Arcade & Minigolf, like:
• Coins;
• Collectibles;
• Weapons;
• Goals;
• Dialogues;
• Special camera triggers;
• Minigames;
• Boss, Recrutiable Characters and NPCs;
• Kickable objects.
• Chi Attacks (objects to throw and eliminate enemies)
• Among other things.
After completing the implementation of all systems, the level reached a maintenance stage, where we avoided adding more features to the level and only took care of bug fixing and visual improvements.
Conclusion
This is one of the levels that I am most proud of in this project, as it was a level that I could use my creativity very well based on the main information from the story brought by the team.
Furthermore, it was one of the final levels of the game where I didn't need my leader guiding me at all times and in this case I was able to have more independence as a level designer.
This level undoubtedly demanded a lot of my attention but that is gratifying to look at with its final result and its beauty.
