Docks was an exercise in greyboxing and level design. I wanted to focus on creating coherent, consistent dimensions around the player, as well as using effective devices such as sightlines and composition to guide the player to the objective. The level centers around a detective investigating a smuggling ring operating out of a shipyard by the harbor. The area is surrounded by a construction site on a nearby bridge, which the character uses to their advantage to enter in stealth.
My process for creating the level involved many of UE5's modeling tools, such as cubegrid, booleans, and vertex-editing. These allowed me to really accelerate my workflow, maintain consistent dimensions, and make a more ambitious level overall. I also udpated a gym throughout development, which allowed me to experiment and refer to previously established dimensions.
I also implemented a few gameplay features in order to better visualize how the level would play out. This included adding crouching and vaulting to the character's moveset, as well as creating basic enemy movement logic for the stealth sections. I also made a trigger-activated animation timeline to show the enemies escaping in a van at the end of the level.
I worked on this project for 2 weeks, and am overall glad with what I was able to accomplish within that period. If I were to revisit this level, I would focus on switching it to nighttime, which would entail revamping all of the lighting. I would also fix up the vaulting and crouch to control a little tighter. There were a few subtle bugs when it came to these, and addressing them would make the level's dimensions even more precise.
Unreal Engine 5
October 2026
Level Design | Puzzle
I added basic enemy movement to simulate the stealth section on the bridge, where the player has to sneak past construction workers.
At the start of this section, the objective continued to be visible in the unoccupied part of the screen. I followed the rule of thirds a lot in order to "pull" the player into the level.
The geometry of these cranes was designed to stand out against their surroundings. Furthermore, they were angled to point slightly in the direction where the player was supposed to go next (in this case under some containers to the left).
Again, this window is a chokepoint where I could control the player's field of view via framing. Even if they're not the actual final destination, the cranes are close enough to the warehouse objective that they can serve as an effective weenie to guide the player towards that objective throughout the level.
Even if other assets would inevitably become colorized later in development, I still added a basic red material to the cranes to indicate how they should contrast with the rest of the level.
I intentionally included a few points-of-no-return in the level, so as to simulate a professional project where parts of the level could then be unloaded.
Here, the player won't be able to get back onto the bridge or anything before it once they jump down to the scaffolding and the area below.
I included a few more moves to increase the character's locomotion. These included climbing, vaulting, and crouching.
The level ends in a warehouse, where the smugglers escape in a van. I wanted to signal this objective early in the level, so it was important to me that the character start in a long, confined space (in this case a sewer), so that the player's field-of-view could be directed at this warehouse objective early in the level.
Following common level design practices, I revealed not only the warehouse objective, but also the points leading up to it in reverse order. Therefore, the reveal order was warehouse > crane rigs > container yard > offices, and the player would see the bridge if they continued to move their camera in that direction.
This is a paper design I later made, which matches the level's exact dimensions.
I used this paper design to make a very abstract plan for my level and how it would flow. I indicated approximate area sizes (P=small, M=medium, G=large), as well as what purposes these areas reserved for in order to give the level context.