THRALL
School Group Project
Project Overview
For this project, I served as the Project Owner in addition to my responsibilities as a Level Designer. The game was developed over a 7-week period by a multidisciplinary team:
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4 Game Designers
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4 Programmers
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2 Animators
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1 VFX Artist
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2 3D Artists
Tech Details:
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Unreal Engine 5
Key Contributions
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Project Owner: Responsible for vision alignment, milestone planning, risk assessment, and team dynamics.
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Level Designer: Designed the entire level layout, pacing, and player progression around the possession mechanic and narrative structure. My focus was on creating a cohesive level that supported both the core gameplay and the story.
Introduction
THRALL is a first-person combat adventure where you don’t just fight the enemy, you become them. Possess foes mid-battle to gain their weapons, abilities, and position to shift your strategy mid combat. Dark fantasy meets tactical FPS: brutal, strategic, and constantly evolving. Chain possessions to dominate dynamic, emergent encounters where no fight is the same twice, and ultimately unravel the truth of your downfall.
Detailed Weekly Breakdown
Week 1 - Project Kickoff and Core Alignment
Focus:
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Established project vision, pillars, and success criteria.
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Defined high-level production timeline and deliverables.
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Created initial pitch and high concept documentation.
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Created rough paper layouts to quickly iterate on the onboarding space.
Issues Faced:
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Aligning all team members around the core mechanic and scope.
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Planning Approach:
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Ran ideation sessions and brainstormed core mechanics.
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Scheduled initial backlog grooming and team task allocation.
Week 2 - Core Mechanics Prototyping
Focus:
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Led the concept development of the possession mechanic.
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Defined player metrics and initial level blockout.
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Developed Section 2, focusing on the environmental puzzle introduction and first combat area.
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Designed the village and church exit paths to provide a natural reveal of the castle.
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Placed exploration incentives that rewarded detours but preserved pacing.
Issues Faced:
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Scope concerns regarding enemy variations and abilities.
Planning Approach:
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Scoped down by cutting one enemy type, based on team capacity.
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Maintained flexibility for future feature expansions.
Week 4 - Level Structure and Asset Planning
Focus:
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Defined Unreal Engine sublevel structure.
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Finalized asset list with modularity and reuse in mind.
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Level Design Tasks:
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Finalized blockout of Onboarding and Section 2 for the vertical slice.
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Detailed the key visual landmarks, affordance, and main progression paths.
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Coordinated closely with 3D artists to ensure assets supported level readability.
Issues Faced:
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Risk of asset bottlenecks and misalignment with 3D team.
Planning Approach:
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Held detailed cross-department meetings to align on asset needs.
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Adjusted asset complexity and quantity to match Art team capacity.
Week 5 - Systems Integration and Playtesting
Focus:
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Integrated level design with core mechanics, enemy AI, and level flow.
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Facilitated internal playtesting sessions to evaluate pacing and spatial navigation.
Level Design Tasks:
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Iterated on navigation paths and refined player guidance based on playtest feedback.
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Adjusted exploration areas to reduce player confusion.
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Improved landmark placement for visual orientation.
Issues Faced:
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Pacing issues and lack of player guidance revealed in playtests.
Planning Approach:
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Improved signposting and encounter pacing.
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Enhanced onboarding and player moment-to-moment clarity.
Week 6 - Polishing and Iteration
Focus:
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Iterated on player feedback and playtest results.
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Refined level pacing, navigation, and player feedback systems.
Level Design Planning:
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Balanced enemy placements and adjusted combat arenas for better flow.
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Enhanced the environmental storytelling by refining scene composition.
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Improved player onboarding through better visual cues and camera framing.
Issues Faced:
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AI errors and collision bugs affecting experience.
Planning Approach:
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Prioritized bug fixing and player experience refinement.
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Scheduled daily builds and focused QA sessions.
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Week 7 - Final Adjustments and Delivery
Focus:
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Final balancing, minor adjustments, and delivery preparation.
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Managed final quality checks and polish passes.
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Level Design Planning:
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Final pass on level readability, player flow, and combat balance.
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Ensured all visual and gameplay elements were cohesive.
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Conducted final playthroughs to validate pacing and player onboarding.
Issues Faced:
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Tight deadlines for final polish, sickness and absence of team members, and remaining bugs.
Planning Approach:
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Facilitated a focused sprint for final tasks.
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Managed scope rigorously to meet the delivery deadline.
Conclusion
This project taught me the importance of vision alignment, cross-disciplinary communication, and rigorous scope management, especially since I was PO. Weekly retrospectives and task reprioritization kept the team focused and productive.
Key Learnings:
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Start player-facing systems early to allow sufficient time for iteration.
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Detailed documentation and proactive risk management prevent misalignment and bottlenecks.
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Regular playtests are essential to identify pacing, onboarding, and systemic issues.
If I were to lead this project again, I would prioritize even earlier prototyping and implement a more structured risk analysis plan from the beginning to detect systemic problems sooner and bottlenecks related to team members sickness or absences.
This experience significantly developed my leadership, planning, and level design skills while reinforcing the need to balance creative ambition with production efficiency in a fast-paced, multidisciplinary environment.