Once A Stray

Once A Stray is an action game in which a brave cat named Auguen, indebted to the spirit Bennet, undertakes a series of quests in order to save their city from a plague. This plague was cast upon the city by none other than the necromancer Lazarus. Auguen must make their way through the city fighting through hordes of rats. Auguen works to exterminate the vermin in hopes of luring Lazarus out of hiding

Once A Stray's development cycle lasted about 4 months and consisted of a team of 13 individuals. Out of 3 designers on the team I was tasked with being the lead Level Designer. Some of my tasks included being in charge of creating various levels and environments. I was Responsible for enemy and asset placement, player progression, and mapping out game play objectives.

Steam Download Link

Project Role

Design and construction for 4 unique levels
Enemy and enemy hub placement
Level Documentation (included enemy placements and critical path)
Environmental Particle effects
- fog
- rain
Be a communication hub between Design, Art and Tech departments.
Import Art assets

Intended Experience & Level Guidelines

The team wanted a fast paced experience that consisted of interesting platforming and different playing experiences. We would present the player with multiple challenges, keeping them on their toes. To keep the immersion of the world and to cater to the idea that you are indeed playing as a cat. I tried to encourage maneuverability and gave the player many places to platform. I thought it be best to allow the player to retreat to higher places to get away from any situation they deemed difficult. On the other side of the coin, I also wanted to give them a multitude of places to pounce on unsuspecting foes.

Enemies were placed in places that also encouraged and taught the player how to utilize their kits to the best of their abilities.

Level Design process

Design stage

For every level I design I like to start on pen and pad first. For this project I wrote down a few key words that described the experience I wanted to go for for each level individually, after that I came up with a sketch for each level, denoting certain encounters for traps and enemy spawns along with player progression. Once I took the sketch and cleaned it up in Photoshop I then went to whiteboxing the level.

Whiteboxing Stage

After getting the go ahead from our creative director I went straight into to engine to get a better idea of the scale and overall player progression. I played with the idea of introducing new rooms with some encounters and mapped out where enemies would be placed.

Polish!

All Videos

Once A stray Models in (Street)

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Once A stray Models in (Alley)

00:18

Once A stray 9-19

01:00

This is the final process, bring all of the assets in and make the magic work. This not only included physical art assets, but lighting, post processing, and decals for the environments.