Jason Huck - Level Design Portfolio

Paper Designs

For various unreleased projects or just for fun exercises.

ROBOT FACTORY


WarCraft III: Reforged, the New War

We only got as far as the paper design phase for this cancelled expansion for WarCraft III: Reforged.

Zero Hour (Mission 3)

Wings of Liberty

Mission: Zero Hour

I was responsible for the layout, pacing, scripting and AI attacks (for Casual/Normal difficulty). Wrote the initial narrative for the mission and tutorial elements. Hard+ difficulty was balanced separately by another designer, but we generally all worked together as a team on missions like this.

YouTube Playthrough (No Commentary)

My major accomplishment with this mission was with the initial level layout. It was initially laid out with the Terran base located on the top of the map. This positioning meant that players were having difficulty seeing enemy attack waves on the screen because the game UI was always in the way. I ended up flipping the map vertically using clever copy/paste techniques to fix the problem by moving the player’s base to the bottom of the map, which gave them plenty of space to view incoming attacks from the “top” of the map, which is now where all the zerg bases were located.

Other Wing of Liberty missions I worked on (level design, scripting and initial mission difficulty):

  • Outbreak: Destroy 144 Infested Zerg buildings before things get out of control and overwhelm you.

  • Safe Haven: Protect & Evacuate colonists from a Protoss Mothership

  • Supernova: Retrieve an artifact from a planet about to be consumed in the supernova of a nearby sun (yeah… I know, a little unrealistic, but was a fun mission mechanic to stay ahead of the fire)

  • Media Blitz: The player gets to play as the Odin and wreck stuff! This is starts off as playground for Tychus and the Odin (which humorously teaches players how to use Thors)

Enemy Within

Heart of the Swarm

My responsibilities on Heart of the Swarm were similar to Wings of Liberty, except I was also responsible for tuning and balancing the entire campaign experience (Casual -> Brutal difficulties)

Mission: Enemy Within

I was responsible for the entire gameplay experience - from level layout, flow, player unit abilities (Larva to Brood Mother growth) to gameplay events & AI scripting and finally the initial writing of the narrative experience.

This was an incredibly fun and challenging mission to work on for a number of reasons. First, since there was no base to manage, I had to keep player engaged throughout the entire experience. Designing and iterating on a fun kit that started with a vulnerable Larva and then growing into a powerful Brood Mother added interesting choices and complexity for the player which let them strategize on how to proceed and deal with each challenge facing them throughout the ship. Another fun challenge was crafting the level to represent the Protoss Shuttles interior and creating interesting rooms and functionality within to facilitate an interesting “commando mission”. Finally, finding (and fulfilling) the fantasy of what it means to be a Zerg Queen was awesome and really let me flex my creative muscles in new ways, while also contributing to the overall fantasy of how the Zerg “work”.

Other HOTS missions I worked on (level design, scripting and initial mission difficulty):

  • Back in the Saddle: Another fun “commando” mission where I was able to add some interesting new elements to the game, like riding on a train (moving background makes it look like the train is moving, but everything is really happening in just one scene) and the “boss fight” against the Archangel (huge Viking).

  • Harvest of Screams: Tutorial mission + deal with a major environmental mechanic - attack the enemy while they are frozen

  • Planetfall: This is sort of a timed hold-out/protection mission. Fairly straight-forward base-building mission that requires good player macro skills to succeed.

Dark Whispers (Prologue Mission 1)

Legacy of the Void

I was promoted to Lead Game Designer for Legacy of the Void, so was not able to contribute as heavily to individual level designs, but was able to work on a few.

Mission: Dark Whispers

I was responsible for the entire gameplay experience - from level layout & flow, to gameplay events & AI scripting and finally the initial narrative experience.

Other missions I worked on:

  • Spear of Adun: Activate the power cells to launch a rocket (the protoss capital ship the mission is named after)

My title on this game was Level Designer. I worked & contributed on the development of a few missions and was also responsible for the World Map event scripting - Army Movement, Story Events, Cinematic Integration, etc.