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Ember Point
Team Size: 8   |   Engine: Unreal Engine 5   |   University Project [Sept 2022 - May 2023]
My Roles: Level Designer, Game Designer, 2D/3D Artist
Steam: Play Now (free)
Itch.io: Download
Downloads: 1200+ units

Ember Point is a combat-focused action game with horror elements. Players play as Gravitus, an ex-soldier who now works for a research organization, and traverse through unsettling environments between enemy encounters. Throughout the journey, Gravitus will discover the disturbing aftermath of a planetary catastrophe, The Overheating, and his organization's research.

Responsibilities 

Level Design

  • Collaborated with combat and narrative designers to expand and revise the prototype level layout.

  • Greyboxed levels in the UE5.

  • Iterated the level based on playtest feedback and combat changes.

  • Set-dressed the level with environmental assets and appropriate lighting.

  • Documented level changes, art direction, and playtest feedback.​

Art

  • Anchored the art direction and designed the protagonist and environment accordingly.

  • Modeled and textured bespoke assets.

Before Everything ... The Narrative.

Before diving into the level design processes, I want to introduce our game's narrative, as it significantly influences my design decisions.

 

In the near future, Earth suffers from rising global temperatures and radiation, leading to an ecosystem catastrophe known as "The Overheating." Most humans escape the planet, but those left behind develop a disease called Gradual Hyperthermia from prolonged radiation exposure. This disease induces symptoms such as hallucinations, super strength, uncontrollable rage, and intense internal heat—turning the remaining human population into aggressive monsters. ​

 

Gravitus is an ex-soldier who now works for Katani Industries. He is on a mission to return to Earth to investigate a potential cure for Gradual Hyperthermia. However, before he can even start his research, he crash-lands in an abandoned town filled with these heated, raging monsters.

Level
Level Design Process

I shifted into the level designer position after the prototype stage and took over a first-pass blockout done by another level designer on the team. I identified the level goals along with combat and narrative changes at the beginning of each major development phase. I then built and revised the level accordingly.

​

First Pass: Prototype

Overall Level Goals:

  1. A 5-10 minutes linear experience

  2. Three enemy types and one boss

  3. The game is set in an old town

The prototype level I was handed with

Post-Prototype Iteration

Major combat design changes:

  1. Scaled-down enemy types from four (3 types+1 boss) to three (no boss)​

  2. Scratched the syringe gun; changed to wave gun with two firing modes: wind and bullet

  3. Added a stasis grenade.

 

Level Goals:

  1. Weave the tutorial into the beginning of the level.

    1. ​Use enemy encounter and environment interaction to teach player wave gun mechanics.

  2. Create arenas for combat sequences

    1. Introduce three enemy types in a progressive sequence

    2. Provide a decent amount of anticipatory area between each combat arena

  3. Fill the anticipatory areas with puzzles and narrative beats that are coherent with the world-building

To achieve the design goals, I divided the map into four areas: introduction, town square, train station, and final arena (forest). I expanded each section while keeping the overall route/structure. 

I then worked with the combat and narrative designers to pace each section, giving them gameplay and narrative purposes.

1. Introduction Area: 

  • Basic movements

  • Environmental Interactions

    • Introduce wave gun function 1: push​​​

  • Introduce fodder enemy

    • Melee combat introduction​

  • Combat reinforcement

3. Train Station

  • Reinforce combat and wave gun mechanics with combat and environmental interactions.

  • Introduce enemy type 3: large, aggressive

  • Unlock a door returning to the crash site (optional)

    • Making the level an open-world map

2. Town Square​

  • Puzzle section: find and push four battery packs into their slots

    • Reinforce wave gun function 1: push

  • Introduce leech enemy type: charging towards players at high speed

    • Introduce wave gun function 2: plasma/slow 

4. Final Arena

  • Allow players to exercise everything they have learned and encourage creative play.

​I added small transitioning sections between each area where minor narrative beats play out. These sections, along with the combat arenas, create a rhythmic pacing loop: explore-->combat-->puzzle/explore-->combat. This pattern helps prevent player fatigue, keeps the game fresh, and builds up tensions (such as the long hallway between the Town Square and the Train Station)

Introduction area sketches

Level paint over and new overhead screenshot

I did two paintovers based on the greybox to help the audio designer on the team understand what kind of environment the player is in, allowing him to create the proper soundscape. I anchored our visual reference to an old Czech town. In the lore, the town was first taken over by medical corporations and later abandoned and occupied by mutated creatures. 

town reference 2.png

Post-Alpha Iteration

Major combat design changes:

  1. 3 enemy types --> 2 enemy types + 1 boss enemy type​

  2. Scratched stasis grenade

​

Level Goals:

  1. Scaling down: delete the forest arena; change the train station into the boss fight arena

  2. Puzzle Expansion: Expanded the town square puzzle to incorporate core mechanics, specifically melee slashing and gunplay.

    1. Reinforce shooting enemy weak points through puzzle interactions​.

  3. Layout Optimization: Streamlined the slope leading into the indoor area.

​

I redesigned the train station from having three levels into one. I then grey-boxed the new station in UE5. I took inspiration from Grand Central and historic Soviet train stations. The exterior is brutalist with concrete geometric shapes, and the interior features a massive open space supported by structural pillars and arches.

​

Since the final boss (Vulkan) has several range attacks, providing enough space for players movement was essential. The pillars serve both aesthetics and gameplay functions: when the boss charges into the pillar, is temporarily stunned and exposes its weak point. This creates combat opportunities for players less experienced with action games and trains players' spatial awareness. The pillars are one-time use to avoid players from abusing this mechanic. I placed four functional pillars alongside two broken ones to visually communicate this mechanic to the player.

​​

The team also replaced the breakable doors to fire that can be put out by the wind mode of the gun. This reinforces the mechanic of utilizing wind mode on fire and heated enemies.

New train station greybox

As a team, we decided to remove the battery-pushing mechanics from the puzzle section for two reasons: 1. it didn't fit the thematic setting; 2. it was too buggy and hard to fix within our time constraints. Instead, we shifted the puzzle sequence to:

​​

  1. Players locate junction boxes that are infested with pustules (the same material as the enemies' weak points) 

  2. Clear any obstacles between players and the junction boxes by using the wind gun or melee slashing

  3. Shoot the pustule with regular bullets

​

The puzzle loop was further simplified to find the junction boxes --> shoot the pustules with bullets --> fumigate any fire blocking the way with wind. This loop reinforces the gun mechanics and our core combat loop:using wind to neutralize fire (or overheated enemies) and then using bullets to shoot the exposed weak points. To assist with navigation, we also added cables that will light up after connecting the previous junction box.

Fire fumigation and pustule shooting demonstration

I helped expand the puzzle area to really hone in the mechanics. This also helps the puzzle section feel more integrated into the game instead of being an "one-off" area.

Puzzle expansion/redesign sketch

I redesigned the slope and the indoor area (the long hallway building). The old version had an abrupt slope and angle that made the reversal feel awkward. I smoothed out the corner angles and streamlined the transition from the puzzle area, to the indoor area, and then to the train station.

Long hallway with leech enemy 

Post-Beta Iteration

Major combat design changes:

  1. Scratched the interactive pillars in the train station for the boss fight

​

Level Goals:

  1. Set dress the whole level

    1. Add lightings​

  2. Minor level changes

​

At this point, the game was feature-complete. I shifted to set-dressing the entire level and added appropriate lighting. I deleted the pillars in the train station because they were no longer needed for gameplay; the player should have the entire floor to deal with a highly mobile boss.

​​

Since the overall environmental lighting was dark, readability was a big challenge in set dressing. Instead of purely relying on lighting, I brightened the textures. I used lighter colors like white and pale green for houses and the train station exteriors. While they may look jarring under bright daylight, these light colors balanced out the overall darkness of the enviornment here.

Greybox/final comparison

Since players will spend a lot of time in the town square and repeatedly see this area throughout the game, I added a statue in the middle of this open space as the centerpiece. I then added flames around it for dramatic effect. I added some explorable areas and details in the scene to further add to the overarching narrative.

Art
Anchoring the Art

I took keywords from the narrative to explore some ideas for the game's art style. It was crucial to align the visual direction with my level design goals to convey the feeling of bleakness, which builds up dread and tension during gameplay.

Gravitus, the space researcher --> astronaut but on Earth?

The Overheating --> Mutation, humanoid, heat, hard skin

The end of humanity --> Post-apocalypse, bleak

I then follow these initial ideas and wrote out the art direction document, which includes the visual ideas for Gravitus, the enviornment, the weapons, and the enemies.

Gravitus: Character Concept

Modeled by Finn Connoly

Pick-axe Model

Renders in Substance Painter

Gravitus' melee weapon is a stylized pick-axe. I aimed to design a weapon that reflects the brutal combat style and encourage combat variations. The pickaxe features two different functions--a hammer and a blade--which allows for more diverse combat animations. Both sides are visually exaggerated to emphasize the impact of normal attacks and execution moves. Gravitus picks up the weapon from the town he crashlands in, and thus I wanted the design to have an industrial look that echoes the local setting.

Lowpoly model in Maya

I blocked out a low-poly model in Maya based on the concept art and sent the first pass to our combat designer for testing. Based on the combat test feedback, I shrunk the hammer size, elongated the handle, and removed the side hold to give a clearer view of the combat animations. When texturing, I added an emissive component near the hammer's end. This helps players identify the weapon and its striking distance in dark environments. It also serves as a visual "initiator" of the swinging VFX.

In-game shots

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