ASSASSIN'S CREED VALHALLA
AAA Open World Adventure Game
PS5 / Xbox Series X / PS4 / Xbox One / PC
Release: Holidays 2020
"Play as Eivor, a viking, explore a beautiful, mysterious open world, face brutal enemies, earn a place in Valhalla."
ROLE
I'm currently leading 2 teams: The World Design Team and the Quest Design Team. I managed a team of 10 Quest Designers and World Designers doing reviews, workshops, 1 on 1, Guidelines, High Level Intentions documents ... I'm also in charge of the recruitment for these teams.
MISSION
I lead the team on some territories of the game, creating the World, Main Quests, Secondary Quests, World Events. We create all the design documentation following an agile dev ops production. I personally work on one territory doing both World Design and Quest Design hands-on work.
I'm also a part of the creative team pushing high level intentions and reviewing the World and the Quests giving feedback. I also work on giving guidance to the team to address these feedback on a day-to-day basis.
I'm also responsible for all the recruitment process of the Level Designers and Quest Designers at Ubisoft Bordeaux on Assassin's Creed Valhalla. First I review the resume (CVs) for all the candidates. I made the Level Design and Quest Design test. I review all the tests and make feedback to candidates. I also conduct the interviews with the candidates through all the recruitment process and give the final decision for hiring a candidate.
I also operate on Producing tasks. I create and assign JIRAs following an agile and DevOps method. I'm in charge to evaluate with the producer what will be our objectives for each sprint. I also manage standups meeting regularly.
I work on a broad range of Level Design topics:
World Design:
-
Layout: I help and coach the World Designers to define the gameplay intention and the thematic of the World, the POIs and locations. Then we produce proof of concepts and block out, pushing the layout with the artists toward a polished version.
-
Gameplay: We always work hard to support the Assassin's Creed Gameplay Pillars. For each location we focus on pushing a unique core gameplay Flow experience, using combinations of Parkour, Navigation Puzzles, LD ingredients, Enemies.
-
AI: The main focus is on placing enemies archetypes. We also work on all the AI Network/Crowd/Patrols/Road Networks ... inside the locations. We also work on the In-Between locations adding some enemies pockets, wildlife, challenges, World Events, World Boss.
Quest Design:
-
Pitch: We create all the Stories and Quests into our territories. We write the pitch of the mission.
-
Quest Flow: We breakdown the pitches into detailed and complex Quest Flows and produce all the assets list dependencies working closely with the Art and Tech teams.
-
Quest Graph: We implement the quest into the editor using greybox and placeholders in the first version iterating the quest until the final polished version.
TOOLS
-
Anvil: Assassin's Creed Open World Editor
-
Office Suite
-
Confluence
-
Perforce
-
3DS Max
GHOST RECON BREAKPOINT
AAA Open World 1-4 Players Coop TPS Game
PS4/ Xbox One / PC
Release: October 4th, 2019
“Experience life as a Ghost, an elite US Special Operations soldier, as you fight back from behind enemy lines”
ROLE
I was an Associate Lead Mission and Level Design. I managed a team of 10 Mission Designers and Level Designers. I was also a Mission Designer and a Level Designer still producing content in the game. We were more than 1000 people on the overall project.
MISSION
Previously we shipped more than 465 scripted events with my team. I worked personally on 50 missions, designing and creating all the Level Design around Quest Objectives for PVE Missions.
We worked on more than 10 Adventure Story Main Missions and multiple Settlements and level layouts.
I worked on a broad range of Level Design topics:
-
Mission Design: I helped and coached the Mission Designers to define the steps of their missions based on the narrative pitch. Then we produced a block out mission finding locations into the world using placeholders / grey boxes, then milestone after milestone we produced a final polished/shippable version of the mission working closely and coordinating all the art and tech teams to push the quality as far as possible.
-
Level Design: We also worked on creating layouts used in the missions. I define the macro structure of the Layout and the model, the architectural consistency.
-
I reviewed and provided guidelines and guidance to the Level Designers.
-
I also checked the metrics for the navigation, the density of covers, and the overall flow in the building. I also worked on boss arena creating fun, challenging, memorable layouts for fighting a boss.
-
Level Scripting: I also worked on creating and defining all the scripted events for missions and living world events.
TOOLS
-
Anvil: Assassin's Creed Open World Editor
-
Office Suite
-
Confluence
-
Perforce
-
3DS Max
THE CREW 2
AAA OpenWorld Multiplayer Motorsport Game
PS4/ Xbox One / PC
Release: June 29th, 2018
“Welcome to Motornation – Take the challenge to the ground, sea, and sky”
ROLE
I was a Technical Level Designer during 6 months.
MISSION
I extended the Open World Editor to edit and create new slaloms into the Open World for cars, planes and boats.
I also prototyped several Rally Raid Starting Grids using the Open World Editor, placing events, props, and I helped to refine the layout.
TOOLS
-
Ubisoft Open World Editor,
-
C++, Blueprint-type Mission Visual Scripts,
-
Jira, Confluence, Perforce.
TEAM
10 people at Asobo Studio mainly designers and programmers, and UI artists.
AAA Holographic Narrative Investigation
HoloLens
Release Date: March 30th, 2016
FRAGMENTS
"You become the detective in a high-tech crime thriller."
ROLE
I was a Game/Level Designer during all the preproduction and production until the release.
MISSION
I designed multi-choices dialogs (like in Heavy Rain or in Telltale games for example). I also designed and balanced more than 70 Levels for 2 Puzzle Games.
TOOLS
-
Asobo in-house engine and editors
-
Perforce
-
TFS
-
Word, Excel, Visio, Visual Studio.
TEAM
International team (US/France). More than 100 people, designers, artists, programmers, producers. Microsoft Studios was the publisher. Asobo Studio was the main development studio under the supervision of a dedicated Microsoft Studio production team.
I worked with my creative director and my technical director at Asobo. Also I had a call with the team at Microsoft on a daily basis. Essentially with the Lead Game Designer, the Technical Designer and the Technical Director at Microsoft Studios.
ORI
AND THE BLIND FOREST Definitive Edition
Indie Metroidvania Narrative 2D Game
PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Release Date: April 27th, 2016
“The tale of a young orphan destined for heroics”
ROLE
I was a Support Team Member, I helped Moon Studio to ship the game on time in the best quality.
MISSION
I played extensively Ori, I troubleshooted the game framework with a full access to the Game Code, and Unity Code. I worked also on a Cross-Saving system between Windows 10 and Xbox One.
TEAM
International team (US/France). Microsoft is the publisher, I was a member of the Microsoft Studio Support Team.
Moon Studio was the main developer. We were a small team at Microsoft Studio.
I worked with the Moon Studio Team (Artists, Producers, Programmers, Designers) over Skype Pro and by Email. Also we were managed by producers at Microsoft.
TOOLS
-
Unity 3D
-
Tortoise SVN
-
Unity Profiler
-
Visual Studio Graphic Debugger
A PLAGUE TALE
Innocence
Narrative Third person Survival Horror
PC / PS4 / Xbox One
Release Date: May 14th, 2019
“Amicia and her brother Hugo survive against swarms of rats ”
ROLE
I was a Level Builder on an early prototype.
MISSION
I implemented the flow of interactive cinematics with the Narrative Designer.
I worked on pacing, I set different shots, and contextual actions and Voice Over Lines during the Demo.
I worked also on placing triggers and elements in the editor, refining the layout with the level artist.
TOOLS
-
Internal Asobo Engine/Editor,
-
P4
-
Visual Studio,
-
C-Style Scripting,
-
Office Suite
TEAM
French Team at Asobo, 20 people at this time mainly Designers, Artists and Programmers.
We were a small team mainly me and a Narrative Designer, a 3D Artist, an Animator, and a Sound Designer.
Flight Simulator
2020
Flight Simulation and game
PC / Xbox Series X
Release Date: Coming in 2020
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth
with your eyes turned skywards”
ROLE
I was a Cinematic Designer.
MISSION
I implemented different gameplay and cinematic cameras, offering while flighting different beautiful and sharp shots of the plane.
I also implemented VR cameras for Oculus.
TOOLS
-
Internal Asobo Engine/Editor,
-
P4
-
Visual Studio,
-
C-Style Scripting,
-
Office Suite
TEAM
International Team at Asobo and Microsoft, 50 people at this time mainly Designers, Artists and Programmers.
