UE Hamster Project

A laid-back platforming game built in Unreal Engine 5 where players explore a hamster village and its surrounding houses to collect lost crystals.

Role: Solo Developer (Game Design, Level Design, Blueprinting)

Engine: Unreal Engine 5

Development: 3 months

Level Design

Hub World: The Hamster Village

Players are first spawned in front of the hamster king who will introduce them to their goal. I designed the village as a hub that communicates progression spatially. The closest level introduces the player to the game's mechanics, while the increasingly elevated houses represent increasing difficulty.

START - HOUSE 1 - HOUSE 2 - HOUSE 3

Low Difficulty - Medium Difficulty - High Difficulty

The Hamster Village: Shop

Players can buy helpful items such as bullets and health with the coins they collect in each level. Coins are distributed throughout levels to encourage exploration while giving players resources for future encounters. Because both ammunition and health are limited, players must weigh the benefit of engaging enemies against conserving resources.

House 1: Teaching

The bottom of this castle village has coins and enemies with randomly spawned positions. To ease players into the game's mechanics, they first encounter the weakest enemies, giving them time to learn shooting and movement. Eventually, more snake enemies will charge at the player, giving them more practice in applying mechanics under pressure.

House 2 : Skill and Environmental Hazards

This lava themed level is more focused on testing the player's platforming abilities while gradually increasing tension through environment hazards. Players must avoid or defeat enemies that chase them. The combination of environmental hazards and enemy threats encourages skillful timing and decision-making. This helps make the house feel distinct while also challenging the player in a different way from the previous areas.

House 3 - Player Choice

This maze level offers an exploration of multiple routes with various challenges. Players can choose between a shorter route containing environmental hazards or a longer route containing more enemies. The large tree with a blue flag located in front of the mountain gives the player a landmark to find. Small spikes and disturbed patches of dirt subtly warn players of hidden traps, rewarding careful observation and caution.

Design Decisions

Progressive Difficulty

I designed levels to introduce mechanics gradually, allowing players to build confidence before adding in more challenges. The first level introduces the enemies, shooting and resource management. The second introduces environment hazards. The third level combines these mechanics with spike traps, multiple enemies and a new button-based puzzle. The progression keeps the experience new while steadily challenging the player with new mechanics.

Player Choice

I waned to give players freedom in how they approach the game. Players can choose whether to use bullets or to avoid enemies, allowing skilled players to progress without eliminating enemies. Players can also choose which house to start with, each house designed to be approachabble despite introducing different mechanics. In the maze, I added multiple paths to the exit to encuroage exploration and allow players to choose their own route.

Environmental Guidance

I used paths, hazards, and points of interest to naturally guide players through the level without relying on written directions. Paths establish the primary route, while hazards and environmental landmarks subtly influence player movement and draw attention toward areas of interest.

Risk and Reward

Players take risk in exploring because they can come across more enemies or environment hazards. However, they are rewarded with more coins or health drops.

Blueprinting

Blueprints I created:

Enemy AI
Enemy Spawners
Dialogue UI and dialogue trigger
Pickups such as coins, health and crystals
Game Instances for pick ups and shop items such as cosmetics and health
Platforms
Teleporters / Portals to other levels
Pressure plates to raise barriers
Spike Traps
Shop system and UI
Player Mechanics: Shooting, Receive Damage, Death and Respawn, Sprinting
UI: Pause menu and title screen

To fix errors found in playtesting, I first play tested to find the bug. Then, I used breakpoints and print strings to help pinpoint where the bug was within my code. I continued to playtest and input print strings and breakpoints until I found where the bug was and what was causing it. I read through my code again and found the solution.