Satisfactory
Game: Satisfactory
Job Title: Level Designer Studio Project at Coffee Stain Studios |
Engine: Proprietary Engine
Early Access Since: March 2019 Latest Major Update: December 2021 |
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game. The player is a stranded pioneer on an alien planet. They are to construct a vast manufacturing network and explore the planet for an unseen interplanetary corporation. As its motto goes:
Construct, Automate, Explore & Exploit. Because Satisfactory is an Early Access game with a largely blocked out world my assignments vary between polishing areas already at a high standard to redesigning areas or caves from the ground up. My responsibilities include everything from sculpting and texturing the terrain to the final placements of all static meshes and foliage actors. One of the main challenges arises from the game being live. Resource nodes present in previous updates cannot be moved, and any iterations have to take into consideration that players may already have built factories there. As Satisfactory is largely driven by systems, I work closely with the systems-designers to ensure that their vision is achieved. As previously released terrain may not always be compatible with a new vision, this often needs creative problem solving. Digging deeper into the terrain to allow new pathways to be created and limiting certain areas to more destructible foliage to make up for any potential overlap. Apart from factory-friendly plains, I also create more 'adventurous' locations, such as dense forests, rocky mazes, and caves where the player can find valuable resources at the risk of running into dangerous beasts. As the player can simply build platforms over the world, or cut everything down with a chainsaw, one challenge is to convince them that the world is too precious to devastate by making it fun to navigate. For this reason, I focus on ensuring the moment-to-moment traversal remains engaging for the player. |
In-game screenshots of my design & art on the Dune Desert and the new caves.
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Responsibilities include:
Open World Design
Dungeon Design
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