My Group Project
Exorfist
Exorfist, a 3D action beat'em up game made on Unity developed by Dragon Punch Studio, a team consists of 6 game development students within duration of 3 months of development time with 4 university lecturers as assistance and guidance.
In this project, I worked as both Lead Designer and Level Designer, facilitating the team communication throughout the development phases of the game, Exorfist.
The game features a young boy protagonist who, after the tragic loss of his best friend, crosses paths with a terrifying Yaoguai. On the brink of danger, being rescued by a mysterious martial exorcist master who recognizes his hidden potential. After her mentorship, he stepped into his journey, mastering combat skills and uncovering the origins of the Yaoguai threat—beginning with the first battles on the streets of Héxié City.
What I Did during the Development
In this project, my primary focus on creating engaging level content while also contributing to other key aspects of the game.
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Beyond design work, I also played a key role in facilitating communication and negotiation among team members to ensure smooth collaboration throughout the development.
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Additionally, I took an active role in drafting and maintaining the Game Design Document (GDD), ensuring its content was consistently updated to reflect the evolving development process.
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The following sections showcase my level design work along with personal insights that guided my decisions throughout the project.
Game Level Stuffs
< Level Design 1 >
< Level Design 2 >
< Level Design 3 >
Before diving into the applied level design, I first created a map during the pre-production phase consisting of 3 planned levels: Temple, Neighborhood, and School.
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Temple was designed as the tutorial level, featuring a training area with dummies to teach players the basic controls and allow them to test attack damage.
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Neighborhood was envisioned as the starting level, introducing players to core combat and exploration.
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School was designed as advanced level of Neighborhood but add in a boss room, where players would confront the game’s final enemy and uncover the origin of the Yaoguai as the game’s ending.
During production phase, however, scope adjustments led to merging School with Neighborhood, where the boss encounter now takes place. Temple was retained as a dedicated tutorial stage, as shown in the 3 level design images above.
Level Design 1 illustrates the foundational layout applied during the production phase, showcasing how the game space is structured and divided into distinct rooms.
Level Design 2 highlights the variety of rooms within each area. Initially, we planned to furnish these spaces with props such as furniture, debris, and ashes to emphasize the ruined world under the Yaoguai’s influence. However, due to limited production time, our art team was unable to implement these environmental details, which would have otherwise enhanced immersion.
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Additionally, the lime-colored tiles on the map represent meditation statues, which players can interact with to upgrade their abilities. These mechanics will be further explained in the Core Aspects section later.
Level Design 3 mainly demonstrates the enemy trigger mechanics, where enemies appear as the player enters specific areas before reaching the actual rooms. Since two distinct enemy types were designed, implemented, and integrated by us, separate spawning points were placed around the map. These points are linked back to trigger tiles that activate enemy encounters as the player progresses.
Other Core Aspects Stuffs
In addition to level and narrative design, I also created the player’s character abilities to enhance combat efficiency. Initially, I designed 7 unique abilities, but due to limited development time, only three were implemented in the final build.
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The selected abilities are:
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Cataclysm Wave — a powerful area-of-effect (AOE) attack.
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Hadouken — a focused, laser-like energy beam.
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Restore — a healing ability to recover health.
Each ability features three upgrade tiers, which players can unlock by spending Chi, a resource earned through defeating monsters.