Rayman Raving Rabbids DS

Presentation

Platformer – Nintendo DS – 2008

What I did.

  • Level design on the runner game type part of the game
  • design, documentation, balancing difficulty and pacing.
  • Level building (Paper > Illustrator > 3DS Max > Engine) and implementation, testing.
  • Bug correction

What I learned

  • Level Design !
  • More precisely, Rational Level Design.
  • Working in a team of level designer exclusively
  • Working full-remote from home.

True to its origin, the Nintendo DS version of Rayman Raving Rabbids (Ubisoft Casablanca) is a platformer.

However, the platforming aspect is split in two differents gameplay :

  • a gameplay similar to the previous Rayman, where the player has a full control of Rayman.
  • a runner-like gameplay, where the player controls an auto-moving-forward Rayman being able to transform into four different entities.

I was part of a 5-members team in charge of the level for the runner-like gameplay. It was my first official experience as a level designer and I learned a big part of this speciality on this project.

The workflow went from designing the level on paper, to building it in 3DS Max and then to implementation in the engine, and also camera scripting and playtesting. All that while following the principles the lead level designers put in place at Ubisoft, now called “rational level design”. I had to maintain updated my Illustrator and Excel files about the levels I was designing, in order for the team to easily keep track of the difficulty curve and the overall progression of the game, as well as getting a direct view about the difficulty of my level.

The lead level designer who supervised us was Stephane Mehay and I’m very glad to have had him on my first project as a level designer.

Map A 1-1

Map A 2-2

Map A 3-1

Screenshots

Manuel Utsunomiya Bonisoli ⓒNut Island Studio Powered by: Grav, Foundation 6 and the Bones theme