Kronos II Mining Station
Kronos II Mining Stations is the interior environment where the first third of Lone Echo occurs and acts as a "safe space" for players to familiarize themselves with various game systems and navigation in zero gravity. This is also the section of the game that houses all ten tutorial levels and only introduces them as players need them.
I was responsible for the early concept stages of Kronos II Station, laying out the "road map" for gameplay beats and designing prototype game elements for playtesting. After collaborating closely with several different departments were we able to create an Alpha version of the Kronos II Station section of the game.
Station Gameplay Beats
The original gameplay beats for the Kronos II Station were crafted by my team with me being the only level designer. I was apart of any decisions on gameplay, pacing, timing, comfort-ability, character interactions, environment layout, prototyping, and narrative for this section.
I was heavily involved in the planning process with other departments like animation, whose movements of Olivia were paced out with the gameplay and narrative beats. Also there were major collaborative efforts with the environmental art team to make sure gameplay and narrative beats fit in well with the crafted environments.
Prototyping Station Gameplay
In order to get a good feel of the gameplay that players would experience in the Kronos II Station, I created prototype game elements within blocked out environments of the station. These prototypes might involve creating block out test assets to represent future physics game assets or developing temporary environments to simulate future art updates.
Early concept designs for the Cargo Bay, Oxygen Garden, and Core Containment gameplay was developed by the systems designer, the narrative designer and myself on the Kronos II Station team. The prototype gameplay for the Cargo Bay and Oxygen Garden were developed by me with support from the gameplay scripting and programming departments. Most of the concept and prototype ideas created for the Kronos II Station made it through to the final iteration of Lone Echo.