Tteokbokki’s Kitchen
Cat-astrophe
Type: Group
Role: Design Lead, Level Designer, Narrative Designer
Length: 3 months, ended July 2023
Publisher: DigiPen Institute of Technology
GAME overview
Created by four beginner designers and one artist, this top-down, stealth game will deceive you with its cuteness. The protagonist, a piece of Tteokbokki, is on a mission to rescue all her fishcake cats.
In this short experience, the player must explore the world food kitchen and help Tteokbokki rescue her cats without being noticed by the desserts. hide, sprint, and throw distractions to reach her precious pets!
My Start Screen Tteokbokki Art
Level Design
Conversations
My first role as a level designer, I made sure to do plenty of research into stealth games to create a well-rounded strategic expereince.
Phase
One
Undocumented
Unfortunately, I Lost the Pages with my initial designs. The game had 5 small levels in the initial vision. I drew about 15 mock ups of these 30 and 60 second levels on paper, but our design shifted to become one singular level
Phase
Two
Once our concept shifted to becoming a singular level, I made sure to create multiple paths to allow the plyer to strategize on the fly and approach each section in whatever order they found best for them.
The result made each main gameplay section feel boxed in and the enemies’ mechanics were not well highlighted. The overall level seemed too small, as well.
The Second Iteration: Expanding the gamespace and creating more opportunities to interact with enemies and learn their patterns.
Phase
Three
There was a lot of space that was not utilized that could have been more populated by enemies. I made some adjustments in editor, which turned the level into the one pictured below.
Because of the space issue, I made more obstructions and placed more enemies, changing the locations of some of the goals, and placing them more towards the bottom of the map. I overlayed it onto the current version to better communicate the idea to the team. While this is the final design, I’ve found that the top of the map is rarely explored as the goal locations disincentivize exploration on the top of the map.
The finished level with props is pictured on the right.
Documentation
This is the first GDD I ever made. It gives An overview of some basic design decisions, but it is not very descriptive and is at times confusing.
Playtesting
Over the duration of this three month project, I playtested nine.
Most of my playtests were conducted at the redmond Library
For the last playtests I conducted, I took notes on paper and transcribed them to a Google doc to later write a report.
Since this project, my playtests have gotten notably more descriptive. it is most notable in Witch’s Brew and Dine N’ Bash.
Reflection
Since this was the first finished game I made, there was a fairly large learning curve. I had to learn how to properly scope the project, not only as the Design Lead, but as the owner of the original proposal. A big part of the project was bouncing ideas off each other, which I had to learn how to do efficiently. Though there were some bugs in the final game, I’m proud of the work we did and my growth as a designer.