Starting in 2022, I joined Amazon Games as a level designer on their MMO project New World.
While there, I designed the 2023 expedition Empyrean Forge, a journey into the Ancient’s lost manufactory within the mountains of Great Cleave.
I took the dungeon from 2D paper maps all the way to shipped product. As level designer, I was responsible for greyboxing play spaces, scripting, placing encounters, and coordinating a multidisciplinary team of artists, designers, and writers to create a cohesive experience that moved the story of New World forward.
One of my major goals when designing the dungeon was adding in an element of ‘hidden information.’ To that end, I designed the Glyph Dial Puzzle, a major feature of the Empyrean Forge.
At dungeon start, the glyph puzzle’s solution is randomly generated, meaning that players cannot brute force the puzzle’s combination lock. Instead, players have to split across the room, seperating into two teams: the code-reader and the lock manipulator. The code reader stands on one platform and is shown a combination of symbols- a combination that they need to give to the player manipulating the lock.
This mechanic is simple in the beginning, but grows in complexity as players are forced to split up and communicate while fending off attacks from fire elementals.
I also was responsible for the design, animation, and scripting of the piston hazards- a new kind of static dungeon hazard that combined our interact system in an novel way to create a looping plug-and-play prefab.