For the gameplay, the two other level designers and I worked to develop action blocks of interesting interactions the player could have with the environment. The three of us stitched these action blocks together to form the first level, Styx, which I was responsible for polishing. This collaboration resulted in our strongest, most interesting level in my opinion. Initially, we sketched these action blocks on paper and then combined them on a whiteboard, which made implementing the level in Unity much easier. I feel that if we’d continued this process with the other two levels as well, they would’ve been stronger as well.

That said, our other two levels, Asphodel and Elysian Fields, are still fun in their own right. I worked very closely with the other two level designers, giving them playtesting feedback and discussing with them how the narrative would flow across the game. We worked together to determine how to escalate the game’s difficulty at the right speed, and how to incorporate more elements from Greek mythology into the narrative.

Collaboration made our game much stronger in other ways as well. I worked very closely with our environment artist, Julian Green, throughout development. As the level designer, I implemented his art assets in engine, like the particle effect of skulls floating out of our water hazard. Julian and I would hand the level off to each other in turns as we worked to create a moody, atmospheric world appropriate to the Styx River of Hades. He implemented the background assets and many of the foreground details—after he’d explained his process to me, I was able to fill in some of the more barren areas while he polished the other levels.