Floor is Lava
A playable Unreal level, built solo
Embedded Files
Brief
Brief
A personal project, built over a month before starting my MA. A top-down third-person puzzle game where a wizard navigates a medieval town whose floor has turned to lava, climbing across roofs, props, and improvised paths to fix the spell. Made to prove I could ship a full playable level in Unreal Engine end to end, including the gameplay logic.
Approach
Approach
I planned the level first, not the assets. The full design lived in a Level Design Document before I opened Unreal: a 7-stage progression curve, a flow chart mapping objectives to checkpoints, a beat chart breaking down each stage by location, goal, assets, events, and difficulty, and a blockout layout with a top-down map.
Level Progression Chart
Level Progression Chart
Difficulty curve across 7 stages. Gentle through stage 3, sharp climb through stages 4-5, easier closing stages
Level Flow Chart
Level Flow Chart
Stage-to-checkpoint structure. A fake checkpoint at stage 5 stalls the player at the 70-80% mark
Level Beat Chart
Level Beat Chart
Stage-by-stage breakdown:
location, goal, assets, events, difficulty
Level Layout
Level Layout
Blockout renders and top-down map showing the full 7-stage route from Start to Finish
The design decision worth flagging: at stage 5, the player encounters a fake checkpoint, visible but inaccessible, designed to stall them at the 70-80% mark and force a re-read of the environment. The difficulty curve was deliberately uneven, gentle through stage 3, sharp climb through stages 4 and 5, then easier closing stages once the player has earned the win.
Wizard character
Wizard character
Textures and color treatment modified directly in Unreal to match the blue magic palette.
Visual direction
Visual direction
Visual direction was deliberately constrained to orange (lava, danger) and blue (wizard, magic). Two colors. No palette drift across the level.
Output
Output
A playable 7-stage level in Unreal Engine 5.4. Original Blueprint logic. Original level design document. Modified character textures.
Tools
Tools
Unreal Engine 5.4, Blueprints.
Roles I owned
Roles I owned
Level Design, Game Logic (Blueprints), Character Texture Work, Lighting Setup, Documentation.
Outcome
Outcome
Personal project, unreleased. Playable build hosted via screen-recorded playtest videos on my portfolio site.
Gameplay
Gameplay
Full level walkthrough
Full level walkthrough
Movement mechanic test
Movement mechanic test
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