Break-in was a Hotline Miami x Bladerunner inspired top-down shooter solo project. I worked on this back in 2017 to gain some experience and learn as much as I could about programming, art, and various Unity systems (UI, Mechanim, Probuilder).
Process:
When creating levels for Break-in I started by first creating writing down and assigning a difficulty to all of the enemies. Once this was done I then started by designing and mocking up levels on paper and doing some paper play-throughs. This often informed design decisions and new features, such as cameras, destructible walls/doors, and lasers.
Once I was happy with the mock-ups, I moved to then create a grey-box of the level geometry and place down enemies. These levels would then go through a stage of iteration, before an Art + VFX pass was completed.
This was one of the first projects where I really wanted to emphasise the environmental story-telling and atmosphere of the world throughout the design of the levels. Although this project was never released, it gave me a strong understanding of the necessary process and iteration of creating believable and atmospheric environments while also focusing first and foremost on the design of the levels.