鬼頭雅英

#Blocktober DAY 9: Open-World Design I know this technically isn't a Blockout, but the fundamentals still apply. Open-world level design isn’t about showing the player everything. It’s about making them want to explore what’s out there. This is The Cosmic Vale, a personal fantasy project I’ve been developing in Unreal Engine 5. What started as a level design exercise inspired by a piece of floating rune artwork eventually grew into a much larger project where players can explore, complete quests, gather resources, fight enemies, and discover dungeons. Working on The Cosmic Vale has given me the opportunity to explore some of the unique challenges of designing larger, interconnected environments. Unlike a linear level, where you have much more control over the player’s progression, open-world design requires you to think about how players navigate and discover the world on their own. Some of the things I consider when designing an open-world space: • Landmarks: What catches the player’s attention from a distance and makes them curious enough to investigate? • Exploration: How can I reward players for moving off the beaten path and looking beyond the obvious route? • Navigation: Can players understand where they are and where they might want to go without constantly relying on a map or waypoint? • Points of Interest: Does each location offer something unique, whether it’s gameplay, environmental storytelling, resources, or a memorable view? • World Flow: How do I connect different areas so exploration feels natural rather than like moving between disconnected maps? • Pacing: How do I balance dense areas full of activity with quieter spaces that let players breathe and appreciate the world? One of the biggest lessons with open-world design is that freedom still needs structure. Players should feel free to choose their own path, but the environment should quietly guide them through composition, landmarks, terrain, and points of interest. You don’t always need to put a quest marker on something to make it interesting. Sometimes, a distant silhouette, an unusual structure, or a glimpse of something over a ridge is enough to make a player change direction. The goal isn’t just to build a big world. It’s to build a world that makes players curious about what’s around the next corner. Portfolio Link with playable build: zswell.itch.io/the-cosmic-va… #LevelDesign #GameDev #OpenWorld #UnrealEngine5

#Blocktober DAY 7: Story telling in Design A level can tell a story without a single line of dialogue. One of the biggest things I learned about environmental storytelling came from one of my first experiences working in the industry. This is a Proto-Drake nest POI I worked on for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight while I was an intern at Blizzard. At the time, I was still learning what it actually meant to build spaces for a professional game. I knew the basics of level design, but working on a real shipped project taught me how much storytelling can happen through the environment itself. Regardless of its size. As I built the space, I learned how to start thinking beyond simply placing geometry and creating a playable layout. I started thinking of the following: • Who lives here? • How would they use this space? • What would they leave behind? • What happened here before the player arrived? • How can the environment communicate scale and purpose? • How can props, terrain, and composition reinforce the story? This was my first real taste of set dressing and environmental storytelling as part of level design, and it completely changed how I approached building spaces. The environment isn’t just the backdrop for the gameplay. The environment is part of the storytelling. A path can tell you where something has traveled. A collection of objects can tell you how a space is used. Damage can tell you what happened there. The placement and scale of objects can tell you who or what occupies the space. And sometimes, the best storytelling is the stuff the player never consciously notices. That was one of the biggest lessons I took away from working on Dragonflight: good environmental storytelling doesn’t always tell the player a story. It gives them enough information to put the story together themselves. Portfolio link: artstation.com/artwork/14JB4… #LevelDesign #GameDev #WorldOfWarcraft #Dragonflight #EnvironmentalStorytelling

【#ACE8 シリーズ最速100万本突破！】 最新作 #ACECOMBAT8 が、シリーズ最速でＷＷ100万本を突破いたしました！世界中のエースパイロットの皆様に感謝の気持ちを込めて、記念壁紙を公開いたします。引き続き皆様に楽しんでいただけるようアップデートを続けて参りますので、これからも応援よろしくお願い致します！ 『ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE』 開発チーム一同