- Roles: Level Designer, Lead Game Designer, Co-Founder
- Engine: UE5
- Development period: From preproduction to ship (3.5 years)
- Key aspects: 3rd person combat arenas, platforming, mission design
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I worked on En Garde! as the only Level Designer in the team for the whole development process, from preproduction to the actual ship (3.5 years). I also was the Lead Game Designer of a team of three other Game Designers and Tech Game Designers for 1.5 year covering most of production and the ship of the game. I was also acting as one of the studio cofounders, doing various tasks to help the company running (Recruitments, strategy meetings…).
En Garde! is a third person action game made in Unreal Engine 5 inspired by the swashbuckler movie genre (Such as the three musketeers and pirates of the carribeans). The first version of the game was a student prototype (Trailer) that my team and me made 5 years ago. After working for 2 years at different companies we decided to reunite the team and create our own studio: Fireplace Games to make En Garde! a full fledged game. The development of the game took 3.5 years and we growed from a team of 8 to a team of 15 developpers.
As Level Designer on the project I’ve worked with a team of 2 environment artists to make the 4 levels of the game and the 25 arena variants that we use in the Arena mode. We also worked with our Narrative Team to create the 4 missions that the players encounter in the story mode.
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The game takes roughly 4 hours to complete and is a linear experience from Level 1 to 4. Each Level is made of Arenas, Connectors sections and ends with a Boss fight arena.
Arenas are the core of the experience of En Garde!. They were designed to maintain the players in the flow of combat through the pillars of our combat: fencing and interacting with the environment. The arenas layouts are made to create situations and opportunities where the players can use the environment, they are also designed to help the player stay in movement to easily find the next tools to fight their opponents. In the arenas the players are fighting waves of enemies which are designed to challenge the player and offer new combat situations through the course of the game.
The connectors are linear level sections that are placed between the arenas to improve the pacing of the game. They involve platforming sections, narration, simple combats and new enemy archetypes introductions.
I’ve learned a lot working on En Garde!, from how an indie studio is runned and works, to managing a team of Game Designers and Creating levels and implementing missions from preproduction to ship.
