LEGO DC Super Villains - Level 06 - “Gorilla City”

Overview

The Justice League has gone missing, leaving Earth's protection under the care of a new superhero team from a parallel universe called the "Justice Syndicate". Under the leadership of Batman's arch-nemesis, The Joker, and the help of a criminal with a vast array of powers, similar to Amazo, that's been taken under the wing of Lex Luthor, the Injustice League, comprised of a large number of super-criminals, decides to up the ante with their newfound enemies. When they discover that Earth's new heroes are not who they claim to be, the League must uncover and thwart their plans in order to save the Earth, during which, Darkseid discovers that the Anti-Life Equation is on Earth, causing an all-out war between the forces of Apokolips and the people of Earth.

Having been tasked with level 06 “Gorilla City”, I worked with the main game designer to meet his vision throughout. As this was

trying something new, I wanted to push the more platforming rather, than constant puzzle solving involving interesting game-

play elements. The game designer already designed and blocked out the level, so I needed to script and implement

the intractable mechanics and mainly other core level features. This level, in particular, was very technical and demanding

revolving around lots of real-time physics for some of the puzzles which was a nice challenge to have.

Here is a quick process of creating a Lego level,

  • Create level lego greyboxing for puzzles.

  • Build Lego within Maya for each puzzle and set-piece.

  • Set up basic animation for lego puzzles

  • Set up scripting for all Lego puzzles, event sequences, player camera movement and overall camera stacks throughout the level, within the engine.

  • Once we had a basic set-up for the level, I would then go through a number of level iterations to improve the puzzles, animation, lego building, optimising, and constant playtesting.

See below for more detailed information.

Platforms:

PS4, XBOX One, PC, Nintendo Switch

Tools Used:

Custom Level Editor & Tools, Maya

Duration:

6+ months

Team Size:

200+

Role :

Technical Level Designer

Gameplay video

Here is a full playthrough of the level.

The video contains the exterior gameplay and end boss section for level 06. This was recently shown at this years GAMESCOM 2018 show, featuring on the IGN live floor.

Starting time: 30 Seconds.

Running time: 12 Minutes, 40 seconds.

Detailed info

Level Design & Building

  • Building and animating Lego within Maya for puzzle layouts.

  • Adjust original grey box geometry to fit with Lego metrics.

  • Creating and animating Lego props,

  • Worked with the Vfx artist to place FX and timings were in the correct place such as smoke, fire, electricity sparks etc.

  • Custom Collision Meshes.

Scripting

  • Utilise redirection techniques that guide the player to the proper direction through the level.

  • Custom scripted for all Lego puzzle iterations throughout level ( physics maze puzzles, ledge grabs, rolling boulders and more.)

  • Hooked up custom animations made in Maya to engine ( opening doors falling plane into river, banana swing and more.)

  • Scripted player movement cameras and camera areas to highlight relevant mechanics.

  • block out boss encounter set up.

Technical

  • Optimising Lego meshes to aid level run more efficient during all puzzle sections and other game play interactions fearing LEGO.

  • Worked with environment, VFX and mechanics team to insure optimisations were also efficient throughout the level.

  • Physics set up for maze puzzle,