Yibing
Chen
Game Designer & Level Designer
Mantra
Engine: Unreal Engine 4 & 5 | Rubyshark [Oct 2023 - Ongoing]
My Roles: Level Designer
Steam Demo: Play Now
My Responsibilities
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Design levels and create greyboxes in Unreal Engine 5.
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Help create modular blockout kits by measuring all doors, wall runs, windows, and important pathways.
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Modify existing level greyboxes to improve the gameplay flow and level purposes.
Set Dressing
I set dressed a room based on a concept art of the office. The office space in MANTRA is bleak, industrialized, and brutalistic. I explored a more horror-esque direction with the given narrative and concept art. I created two different sets of lightings, dusk and night, as both can demonstrate a sense of eeriness.
Concept art & environment (dusk) comparison
The concept art depicts 8 office cubicles. I aimed to showcase some personality of each worker while maintaining the overall gritty, function-driven environment.
To do so, I designated a mini-story/theme for each cubicle. One person who just had his birthday, another was having a massive emotional crisis and overloaded their space with compulsive post-it notes. Behind them sits a highly tidy person who keeps everything symmetrical; at the corner is someone quirky who brings a doll to work ...
Above all, I designed an overarching narrative: the company was experimenting on a creature. It escaped the container, entered the office space through air ventilation, killed the manager, and left. Players can follow the paw print, blood trail, and frantically knock over pieces of furniture to decipher the story.
Slide for more images
Combat area
Level Greybox
Level 1: Expand on the existing level
I reworked the underground area of level 1: Security Base. In this game, players play as a character fighting against a powerful corporation with robot forces. Based on the gameplay and level progression, I identified several level goals:
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Reinforce basic gameplay elements: wall-run and shooting
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Establish game narratives
In this rework, I designed three new rooms, each with gameplay mechanics and a unique visual identity. Players descend via a lift into a storage hangar, wall-run through a vent, and reach a research lab where the company showcases its latest technology.
They then take an elevator to a meeting room overlooking several labs before entering a larger laboratory testing laser technology, which players later acquire. A laser gun destroys materials on a conveyor belt to demonstrate its function, and players must redirect it to break through a locked door and progress.
Level 4: Modify the existing level
For level 4: The Mountain, I was tasked to modify the existing level. I identified two design goals based on the gameplay and narrative needs:
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Incorporate more laser-gun-related gameplay (puzzles, traversal, etc.)
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Give each room a clearer visual identity.
This level is set within a mine, deep in a mountain. This is where the company mines fuel for its robots, and the facility is largely automated. Based on this narrative information, I listed out all the rooms in the existing level and researched real-world mines for ideas.
Before
Mine entrance
Puzzle area: using the laser gun to activate targets, turn the target in the middle to connect all targets, and open the door
After
Added mine drill storage, drills in work, and a laser gun interaction
Added mining walls to make it looks like a collapsed mining site; added wallruns, and different terrains for combat
Made this room a repair lab in the mine. Players need to rotate the mechanical arm to connect all laser targets to open the door. Added conveyor belts with fixed robots for players to treverse through the area.
Modular Blockout Kit
I measured the dimensions of doors, windows, platforms, wall runs, and vents in all levels. The data helped the art team to create a modular blockout kit, which improved the workflow for both level design and art team.