TOPHAT
Overview
Tophat is a casual Arcade Battler game made for Meta Horizons playable on Web, Mobile and Quest Vr headsets. I was tasked with creating the core Tophat Level and all Associated gameplay mechanics provided within a pitch doc by upper management at Nearlight.
Key Features
Perform Rock Paper Scissor Battles with other players.
Roam the world and discover secrets.
Acquire presents to gain currency.
Chase and battle others to acquire their presents.
Jump, Double Jump and Dash to Victory.
Main Contributions
Designed the core social level from concept to release.
Established a new workflow for Studio Nearlight to Use within Horizon Worlds.
Collaborated closely with Engineering and Art teams to implement level assets and gameplay mechanics.
Organizing studio wide playtest to acquire level feedback.
Iterating on gameplay mechanics and the level to fit within the world design.
Responsibilities
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Designed and iterated on level variants from pre-production through release, including integration of Meta AI into existing levels.
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Defined level design pillars and supported the team in planning the overall direction and content roadmap of the game.
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Developed the Horizon Level Design workflow for Studio Nearlight, streamlining practices to create a more efficient development lifecycle.
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Led the design team workflow, establishing a flexible review schedule, mentoring designers, and managing the onboarding process to the Horizon Worlds Editor.
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Designed core level mechanics to enable emergent gameplay within TopHat.
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Analyzed player feedback and user heatmaps to identify data-driven iteration targets.
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Created and maintained asset templates to ensure gameplay prefabs were functional, up to date, and fit for use within TopHat.
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Organized play sessions and test criteria across Mobile, Web, and VR devices.
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Tracked and reported key platform differences to ensure consistency and performance across all platforms.
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Created the TopHat GDD for Meta and iterated on it based on stakeholder feedback and the evolving requirements of the game.
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Documented all planned gameplay mechanics in Confluence for use by the Art and Code teams.
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Managed feature handovers between Code, Art, and Design throughout development.
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Organized studio playtests and stakeholder feedback sessions to gather targeted insights on game progress.
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Took on cross-disciplinary task assignment in the absence of a producer, ensuring milestone goals and deadline criteria were tracked to meet the agile timeline set by Meta.
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Attended key meetings with Meta to relay engine feedback and request new features.
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Managed communication between Directors and the team, relaying feedback and highlighting when feature requests were not feasible due to time or engine constraints.
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Assisted the Code Team by providing focused testing for key persistent online features.
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Reported Art and Code bugs to support timely resolution.
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Maintained consistent, clear communication between departments to monitor overall game health and assess deadline feasibility.
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Created and oversaw all handover briefs with both the Code Team and the Art Team to ensure smooth cross-disciplinary collaboration.
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TopHat World
Level Overview
My contribution to the TOPHAT project involved creating a central social hub built within the Meta Horizon platform. The core mandate was achieving infinite replayability while adhering to a strict player count (optimized from 24 down to 12). The level utilizes a dreamlike castle aesthetic and employs deliberate zoning to maximize its utility. I ensured the layout functionally supports the game's core activity pillars, Chase, Battle, and Chill-out by designing dedicated, high-flow environments that are inherently suitable for each playstyle.
Responsibilities
Full Layout from concept to Release
Post Release Iterations based on data driven feedback
Mockups and layout of gameplay activities within space
Responsible for handover between departments
Responsible for implementation of gameplay elements and level scripting
Level Design Goals
Create a permanently online Social space that encourages Tophats Core mechanics of Looting and battling.
Add many pathways for verticality to avoid bottlenecks and chokepoints encouraging more free flowing movement.
Consider spacial metrics for the level to be used in both VR and on Mobile devices accounting for the different control methods.
Level Element breakdown
Spawn pagoda: Spawn area visible across map
Wardrobe area: where players can customize their hats and outfits located in the spawn and in VIP areas
Mushrooms: Can be climbed on behave similar to trees
Trees/Treehouses: Chase area and landmark
Fountain: Visual Landmark and congregation point
Bridge: Landmark and social area
Mini Pagoda: Social areas
Hedge Maze: Chase/ Tag Area
Statues: Visual landmark and social points for players to gather around
Waterfall: Visual landmark
VIP Areas: Progression Area
Cable Car Platforms: Transports the player across the top of the map to the VIP area Above Spawn
Rising Rock lifts: Brings the player up to the waterfall VIP area and Cable Car
Water garden: Social and battle area located near the rock lifts
Pond and Lilypad's / rocks
Layout Moodboards
Whilst each area is meant to be different and unique to each other these must all share an identity as part of the same world to avoid the suspension of disbelief. I gathered a large quantity of references to fall back on for inspiration while designing these spaces.
References
No Mans Sky: No Mans Sky has environments full of colourful vistas with unique landmarks and focal points for players to gather round.
Astrobot: Astrobot has a wide range of environments that use platforming as a fun traversal method we could incorporated various jump puzzles / secrets that could be accessed via the use of the jump mechanic.
Astroneer: Astroneer has alien like environments with lots of vibrant colours it seems to use a lot of folly assets such as trees and rocks to break up the environment and make traversal more interesting.
Rock Gardens: Rock gardens typically have winding paths full of nooks and crannies alongside distinct landmarks the paths.
Disney / Ghibli Aesthetics: Landscapes and environment art from Ghibli esque titles and Disney rarely use sharp angled shapes favouring more natural forms and designs to be more comforting and appealing.
Gameplay Moodboards
Moodboards and references used for providing a rough idea of how gameplay should play out within project Top Hat within the context of each area. As gameplay will be split into different areas depending on the players location this means that each area and sub area will have different design requirements depending on the gameplay they provide to the player.
Area Requirements
Chase Area: Games that involve a tagging system / catching other players use a combination of open and closed spaces with chases usually occurring in open and obstruction free areas.
Hiding Areas: In order for players to hide within our levels secluded areas must be interwoven within more open spaces such as is the case for mazes. Being able to block off sightlines into smaller areas will allow for a player to take a gap from the chase act and hide until their pursuer has passed.
Layout Moodboard: Areas should be separated but distinctly part of the same world such as in the case of a theme park.
Load in Area: The load in area could be done in multiple ways, players loading in at the same point in a relatively central point of the map with visibility on all the major Sight blockers.
Social Zones: Social zones will be scattered across each area ideally around landmarks to give players a chance to rest and recuperate.
Verticality: Verticality will be created via natural changes in the environment avoiding the usage of sharp or overly angular collisions to improve traversal and make navigating through the levels verticality a smooth process.
Node Diagrams / Flowchart
I always like to explore a multitude of layout types at the node diagram / flowchart stage as I find this personally the easiest to visualize a full levels flow in terms of its connections and pathways
Node Explanations
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Concept 1: Central Overlook for Activity Legibility
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Goal: Maximize player choice and situational awareness.
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Description: Designed an elevated, central spawn point providing full visibility of all active zones. This 'lay of the land' approach allows players to quickly assess activity levels and identify areas of high social density at a glance.
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Concept 2: Elevated Hub and Island Layout
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Goal: Consolidate player spawns ensuring long sightlines.
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Description: Proposed an elevated, island-style central hub for the primary spawn, shop, and information areas. Activities would be arrayed around this center, utilizing portals for seamless player access to remote biomes.
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Concept 3: Differentiated Spawn for Retention
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Goal: Provide context-specific onboarding and reward returning players.
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Description: Implemented a split spawn strategy: a dedicated entry point for new players (integrated with onboarding information), and a prestigious spawn location for returning players (closer to challenge zones and commerce), reinforcing long-term engagement.
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Concept 4: Zoned Spawns for Activity Grouping
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Goal: Control player grouping and increase biome flexibility.
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Description: Explored separating the central spawn into three distinct sections, each feeding into a unique biome. This allows for deliberate grouping of players based on their intended activity, maximizing flow and reducing congestion in transition areas.
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Concept 5: Dynamic Teleportation for Density Management
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Goal: Ensure high social density in an open-plan environment.
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Description: Focused on an open-plan environment where the level itself would be larger. Players would select their spawn point upon joining, prioritizing teleporting them to the area currently containing the highest number of players to ensure instantaneous social interaction.
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Topdown Plan (Paper Design
Preliminary top down plans for potential level layouts to scope out scale and potential area locations these were used as a basis for the design of the level but were iterated on due to adjusting scope and scale of the project as requirements were defined.
These were produced as a result of carrying Concept 1, Concept 3 and Concept 4 forward from the node design / level flow chart phase.
Top Down Plan reflections
Plan 1: May be the most effective blockout in terms of achieving our desired aims will still being able to iterate on the core structure.
Plan 2: I believe this may result in issues with separating players inconsistently and having them spread out across a wide area instead of grouped performing activities and interacting with each other socially.
Plan 3: The division into section may prove tricky in terms of separating players and restricting player flow therefore this method shall be explored if the first method is deemed unsatisfactory.
Initial Blockout
The initial blockout proved to be successful with players congregating in many of the key social areas with the bridge and Courtyard being the favourites.
In this version of the blockout all ground paths were interconnected on the lower levels which allowed players to easily chase battle and acquire loot from each other. If they are skilled enough they can use jump puzzles to ascend to higher verticality to gain space.
I have marked up the areas in green as Chase zones were players were commonly battled. Blue zones are marked to signify areas where players can hide and evade upcoming pursuers. And red zones are marked as social zones due to the resent of landmark POIs.
Problems & Solutions
Problem: The blockout as per my brief from stakeholders was designed to accommodate ~24 players a shifting direction caused this to be reduced down to 12
Solution: As a result I refined the scale of the blockout to the one you see in the image to the right and supplemented it with an alternate proposal for if worst comes to it listing areas that could be removed if needed
Result: Many of the optional areas were removed and scaled down creating a more tight nit experience for players
Problem: Lack of communication between departments causing issues with the design pipeline
Solution: Organizing and push for shorter catchup / check-in meetings twice a week with the relevant departments to ensure alignment.
Result: A more efficient workflow between art and design going forward.