Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
​Respawn Entertainment

 Role: Level Designer
June 2018 - November 2019 (Full-Time) | Summer 2017 (Internship)

Description

A galaxy-spanning adventure awaits in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a 3rd person action-adventure title with influences ranging from Dark Souls to Metroid to Zelda.

​See more details about the game here.

Ilum

I was the level designer for the planet of Ilum! Designing it was an awesome experience, even with its challenges.

The biggest of these challenges was that the player would be going through an established space: the temple depicted in the Clone Wars TV show (in the episode: "The Gathering"). I needed to merge our level design goals with the pieces that had already been shown on the show.

This ended up being the most exciting part of the entire process. Not only figuring out how the initial ice lake had changed over the years, but how to turn the central temple chamber into a puzzle! The TV show already provided a lot of interesting pieces and the space was really compelling, so I set out to stay as true to that original room as I could.

And I gotta say, I think it went pretty well! Almost every element of the puzzle is from the show: the crystals, the light, the windows, and the frozen waterfall. I also did my best to try and preserve the original shape of the room, though I had to make adjustments to make the puzzle work. I later heard that the person who had designed that room for Clone Wars saw my design and was really happy with it! Even though I never got to meet him, that was a great feeling.

Holocron Force Vision

I designed the original whitebox for the Force Vision where Cal sees what happens if he uses the Holocron.

When I was given this level section it was highly conceptual, existing only within the script. I worked closely with the narrative department to deliver what they wanted while trying ground it by keeping almost all of it within gameplay verbs.

When the whitebox was completed, it was passed off to another level designer to polish and take across the finish line. Much of my work made it through, but some things changed, particularly the last segment.
Start at 6:00 to see the Vision.

Force Highlights

I managed the implementation of the Force Target Highlight system across the game.

This work included not only the literal implementation, but advocating for the necessity of the red highlight and working with code and art to  get the highlight to read on various objects across the game.

Tomb of Eilram

I maintained and added to the Tomb of Eilram for the last year of development following its original design by the Lead Level Designer.
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Though I made a few design changes, much of my work on this level was scripting and bug fixing. The Force Orbs in this level had all manner of physics bugs which caused all sorts of headaches.

Additionally, I scripted and managed the elevator that takes the player in and out of the temple. This was a pretty large effort because of all the moving pieces and complications with our streaming and lighting systems.
Start at 38:45.

Content Lost to the Ages

Some work I did for Jedi: Fallen Order didn't end up making it in for one reason or another. This includes:
  • A whitebox for a secret area of Bogano.
  • A prototype for a puzzle for Dathomir based around manipulating AI behavior.
  • A puzzle with Force Orbs.