Rapid Level
White-Boxing
Solo Level Design Process and Skills Practice Challenge
Roles: Level Designer, Narrative Designer.
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Tools: Unreal Engine 5, Blender, Figma.
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Skills: White Boxing, 3D Modeling, Environmental Storytelling, Blueprinting.
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Genre: Third-Person, Action-Adventure Game.
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Target Audience: In this rare case, myself!
White-Boxing Process
When doing Level Design, the ability to block out a space in a timely manner is vital for supporting the needs of the design team and for setting up artists to begin work on the visual elements of a space. The faster a minimum viable product can be achieved, the faster a level can be play tested, providing more time for iteration. This being said, while being mindful of time is important, it is just as important to maintain quality design thinking through each step of the white-boxing process.
To practice these skills, this is a challenge I do where I take a prompt for a level, and must block out a space within 2 hours. My priority isn't finishing the space, but trying to get as much done as I can in that time frame, while upholding good level design principles, with some alterations to the challenge made here and there to better support different skills I'm trying to practice. Below is a look at the work of done on each of these prompts.
White-Boxing Prompts
Rapid Level White-Boxing Challenge Prompts to be Completed in Under 2 Hours
Prompt 1
Level Prompt:
An abandoned shopping mall in various states of disrepair. Primarily an interior space, but you're free to add some views of exterior from inside, as you see fit. Exterior can be any environment (urban, hills, desert, etc.).
Player Objective:
Find the breaker room and turn power back on. With power on, they can take the now operable elevator to the top floor security room to get the McGuffin.
Prompt Structure:
Blind Prompt to be built under a 2 Hour Time Limit
Goals Going into the Prompt:
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For this first challenge, I was primarily looking to benchmark where I was at in regard to speed, both with working in Unreal Engine 5, and using Blender.
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I was also looking to maintain good level guidance and some sense of level progression, while trying to build as much of the space as possible.
Outcome and Reflection:
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I ended up spending more time building out spaces to sell the astatic then I spent on designing the level itself. During this initial block out stage, the level design is more important than the aesthetic fidelity, and I need to make sure I prioritize that properly.
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In this challenge I also learned quickly that I didn't remember the hot keys I needed to for Blender, so I pivoted to working exclusively in Unreal so that I could move faster. If I want to use a tool like Blender in a fast paced time crunch like this, I will need to make sure I know all of the necessary hot keys off the top of my head.
Prompt 2
Level Prompt:
A Dairy Plant turned Chemical Weapons Factory.
Player Objective:
Infiltrate the Dairy Plant, and reach the secret lair inside. Once there, set a series of charges to blow the space sky high.
Prompt Structure:
Blind Prompt to be built under a 2 Hour Time Limit
Goals Going into the Prompt:
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I wanted to focus on the level layout and building as much of the playable content as possible over visual fidelity.
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I wanted to try approaching the block-out from the exterior first. To give a more focused path towards the end goal, I would put a placeholder for a building, and then later replace the placeholder, with an interior.
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Normally, I start with a spaces interior to prioritize building a space that feels intentional and practical, but I was curious if taking the opposite approach could help me work faster.
Outcome and Reflection:
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Compared to the previous challenge, I feel that this one has a much stronger level design.
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Specifically so in that the space feels like it was designed to be a level, which wasn't something that was achieved super well in the previous challenge.
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Approaching the space from the exterior first for buildings did help me work faster, and I think this was because I was laying out a guide for how big the space should be, and where it should go to.
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Since I'm building these spaces in 2 Hours, I don't have a map in mind or sketched out on paper like I normally would going into the blockout, so all of my decisions are made on the fly.​
Prompt 3
Level Prompt:
You are are infiltrating a dam to set explosive charges on the generators inside. This space should have both interior and exterior areas, and should use the hoover dam as a reference.
Player Objective:
Infiltrate the facility and plant a series of charges to blow open the dam, and flood the canyon.
Prompt Structure:
Blind Prompt to be built under a 2 Hour Time Limit
Goals Going into the Prompt:
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I wanted to go further towards prioritizing the playable space as quickly as possible. Even in a rough state, getting the level "complete" will help me get to playtesting it start to finish faster.
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I also wanted to continue to stress test the exterior first approach I was taking from the previous challenge.
Outcome and Reflection:
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In my opinion, I felt this was my weakest execution of this challenge.
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The reason for that is to try and capture the setting the prompt outlined for me, I spent nearly all of my time blocking out the environment, and comparatively, very little time building playable game content.
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I believe the reason for this is a fault of me going into the challenge without a concrete plan for the level. In a production setting, I always start with a map on paper of the space I mean to create which then guides my blockout. Not having that limits what I produce quickly, and so I fell back on the elements of the level I had answers to based on the prompt.
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Based on these results, I am going to change the challenge itself to better reflect the process I regularly work with.
Prompt 4
Level Prompt:
An abandoned Anaszi Village where there are enemy grave robbers looting the place.
Player Objective:
You need to recover the artifacts before they do. 3rd person action / stealth combat is intended gameplay.
Prompt Structure:
Blind Prompt to be built under a 3 Hour Time Limit
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The First Hour is spent off screen designing a Top Down Map of the Space.
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The Second and Third Hour are spent in Engine Building the Space.
Goals Going into the Prompt:
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I wanted to try doing this challenge with a top down map sketched on paper going into it. Spending an additional hour to do some pre-production kind of work will help better guide my block-out, and help me to make better use of my time.
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I also wanted to try not starting at the very beginning of the level. Since I was going in with a more defined plan for the space, I knew which parts would be more complicated from the outset, so I could have a better direction for what to prioritize first.
Outcome and Reflection:
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In my opinion, this is the strongest work I completed as part of these challenges.
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Having a top down map to guide my direction not only helped me have a better idea of what I was doing, but by extension, it also helped me to work faster since I had answers to things that would have otherwise been questions. While I didn't get to complete everything I had planned, I got much closer to the end goal and had the time work at a more visually appealing level of fidelity as well.
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My thought coming out of this challenge is could lowering the visual fidelity of my blockout enable me to work even faster? That way creating a rough but complete level within the time, which then could be iterated on in fidelity following it's "content complete" nature.
Prompt 5
Level Prompt:
A ruined multi-level subway station that exits to what used to be a metropolis city.
Player Objective:
Escape the collapsed Subway Station to the City Above.
Prompt Structure:
Blind Prompt to be built under a 3 Hour Time Limit
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The First Hour is spent off screen designing a Top Down Map of the Space.
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The Second and Third Hour are spent in Engine Building the Space.
Goals Going into the Prompt:
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Following the previous challenge, I wanted to experiment with a lower level of visual fidelity with the intent of reaching content complete state faster.
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This rough but complete version of the level then could be iterated on visual after the fact, but the playable needs of the space could be met potentially under the time limit.​
Outcome and Reflection:
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I felt that largely my theory was correct, though the level I designed on paper which the blockout was based on, was larger in scale than it probably should have been for the challenge. That being said, I did in fact put together more of the level than I otherwise would have been able to given this approach. Given all of this, I am interested in continuing to experiment with this kind of approach on a larger scale level in the future.
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During this challenge I found myself struggling a bit more than I did previously achieving the correct scale, and also found myself wishing I had more time to do further research on the way tracks might connect with each other, and how the tunnel portions of subway systems might look.