Suck It Up!
Level Designer
In active development, release in May 2026
Suck It Up! is a third-person action-adventure game, in which you use your trusty vacuum cleaner to clean up the city and defeat enemies along your way. Pick up any objects you can find in your adventure to clear the infestation and save the city.
Personal Responsibilities
Explored and defined core gameplay loop.
Designed and iterated on level mechanics and lay-out.
Collaborated with programmers on level mechanics.
Collaborated with artists on setdressing and lay-out.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
Communication
Effective communication with team members is essential towards creating a cohesive experience. Therefore, I asked myself how I could communicate my ideas with designers, artists and programmers in a clear and concise manner.
Visual Communication
I used a variety of visual communication, such as sketching and nodemaps to communicate my design intention with other designers and team members.
Feature Specs
Communicating my intentions for a specific level feature with programmers was tough. To solve this, I created dedicated feature spec documents that describe the intended behaviour of the feature as well as the implementation requirements, such as exposed variables.
Playtesting Data
Playtesting data did not only influence my design. Whilst playtesting, I always received feedback on the 3Cs, environment, UI, etc. I wrote this feedback down and shared it with the applicable team members in-person. Playtesting data serves as a driving force for change in support of the player experience.
Collaboration
Tight collaboration plays an integral part in the success of any project. I worked closely with fellow designers and other disciplines to bring our vision to life.
Level Design Buddy
Alexandra Făsui, my level design buddy, and I worked as one. At all times, there was a direct line of communication between us. This allowed us to have quick design discussions, over-the-shoulder reviews and ensured we were always up-to-date on any changes either of us made to the level.
Team Player Character
Throughout the project I collaborated with Team Player Character to iterate on the 3Cs. By providing gym levels and testing different metrics, sizes of space, slope angles and more, the team was able to get a much better feel for the character.
Together, we created a demo level that established the direction for our game.
Environment Artists
I made sure to work closely with my environment artists. I regularly updated them on changes to the level and asked them for feedback and changes that they would like to see to the level.
As the project progressed, the collaboration got tighter to the point where Boris Korevaar, an environment artist, and I worked as tightly together as I had been with my level design buddy.