NICKOLAI FUGLEVAAG

Level Design Portfolio

I worked as a Level Designer for over 4.5 years on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora in various different teams at different production stages over the course of the project.

For example the Main Quest team and the Non-combat Locations team.

The team I spent the majority of my time on the project in was the Main Quest team where I worked all the way until the game was content complete in the lead up to release.

My responsibilities as a Level Designer working on the main quests for the game were:

• Paper design and pitching ideas for locations and gameplay based on the narrative context and the quest design document.
• Block out level layout & work with the world team for its placement into the world.
• Scripting gameplay scenarios and NPC encounters, both story and combat.
• Setting up checkpoint and respawn flow.
• Close collaboration with the Technical Level Design team for things like gameplay ingredients, based on playtesting, and various other level/quest needs.
• Organize various playtest and feedback sessions within the quest team to iterate on the content.
• Feedbacking and tools requests on workflows and other Snowdrop Editor functionality for improved efficiency and convenience for the teams I worked in.
• Champion the gameplay experience while working together with other disciplines (like quest design, art or audio for example) as they complete their various work and passes on affected locations.
• And finally once the game was closer to its final product form, fine tuning and balancing the game experience based on playtest and Director feedback.
• Taking over maintenance and adjustments of locations made by people who left during the project.
• As well as bug fixing and polish as the game moved closer into its final stages before release.

For some more detailed breakdowns, here are a few examples of some of the main quest that I worked on over the course of the project:

Main Quest - Pandora (Intro)

First forays into the open world. Loose guidance without discouraging free exploration. Narrative context is you have just escaped and are searching for other survivors.
"What would a survivor do?"
"Don't get lost, follow the river."

Easily one of the biggest challenges on the LD side in a game with such incredibly dense and detailed jungle was guidance and readability. And this being part of the intro to the game it was even more important to make sure we tackled this early on. One of the main goals and challenges to this was to still keep it as organic as possible, so as not to clash drastically with the rest of "random nature" which had not been level designed.

Even if this initial mini open world area is located in a crater preventing too much exploration off the quest path, it was still possible to get lost. So there had to be extra effort put into clarity and guidance as much as possible in a forest environment like this.

Some of the methods I as a Level Designer used to create clarity and readability in this quest environment:

• The use of negative space through techniques of clearing up the jungle to various degrees of granularity.
• Leading lines and inviting shapes through placement of various assets like tree branches, rocks, traversal plants and so on for both traversal and guiding the eye towards the desired direction.
• Using pathing tools to create paths through the jungle.
• Using narrative or gameplay assets to draw the players attention. (Like the smoldering mech suits in the examples below)
• As well as custom placement of key recognizable art assets that stand out and create visual anchors in the environment upon which to build up memory for easier orientation and navigation.

The next section of the quest was the abandoned RDA fueling station which was used as the narrative anchor and the player's first quest objective location.

The next final section of the quest that I worked on was the path from the RDA fueling station up to the Resistance Headquarters, which was the next quest objective to reach.

Here the goal was to guide the player through signs of a "basecamp by the waterfall" and a beautiful and enjoyable climb to the top, introducing some traversal mechanics along the way. As well as giving the player a few good views of where they are currently in relation to their objective target at the top.

Main Quest - Take Flight

WIP

This was the quest where the player would finally be getting their very own Ikran flying mount.
Braving the dangers on the climb to the top of the Ikran rookery to make the bond.

I took over responsibility of the entire Ikran rookery level from its initial designer. Working closely with the Quest Designer and Environment Artist my contributions included:

• Gameplay and traversal flow
• Setting up and polishing narrative story beat locations
• Setting up ambient Ikran NPCs and their animations
• Designing small traversal locations throughout the level and adding loot containers to them
• Custom checkpoint and respawn setup, slightly different from the rest of the game due to the unique location and to not break the flow and excitement of the climb too much if the player happened to fall off and die.
• Feedback iteration, performance adjustments and bug fixing

The goal with the level was to experience the thrill of movement and the "butterflies in the stomach" climb to the top of the Ikran rookery floating mountains, with the ever presence of these majestic flying beasts that inhabit the mountain.

The quest location was even featured in an IGN Concept to Controller episode, and I'm quite proud of having been one of the people being part of bringing this quest and its location to life:

Main Quest - The Weeping Gorge

WIP

Quest location in the Upper Plains region of the map. About mid way through the game.

This location is an ancient and important cultural location for the Upper Plains Na'vi clan where their massive companion beasts, the Zakru, are laid to rest at the end of their lives.

I worked on this location from the initial conception stage (L0) up through to iterating on gameplay flow and  level design adjustments after art passes (L2).

Earlier in the project I also worked in the Non-combat Locations team creating small sized miscellaneous open world locations for the player to come across as they explore the world. A few minutes of gameplay snippets, usually with some sort of challenge to solve, and then a reward at the end.
The goal with these locations was to catch the player's attention and interest while exploring the world and provide some narrative and world building, but also short enough to not break the player's flow of more long term exploration goals like following a quest for example.

These designs were initially a big list of "elevator pitch" style idea sentences, for example:
"A huge hollow tree log fallen over a body of water. Can see through the sides to the loot inside but entry is blocked. To enter, dive into the water and swim into the log from an opening underneath (the same opening + water also visible when peeking inside the log, to give a hint)."
The ideas we liked the most were then blocked out using both art assets and blockout meshes, depending on what the idea was and what was available to get the idea playable as quickly as possible.
Some art assets, new (or more complete) game features and mechanics coming in during development, as well as the process of building the first of these locations even inspired ideas for more of these locations, that were subsequently built after.

Here are a few examples of these smaller open world locations that I designed: