Overview
- Role: Level Designer
- Platform: Meta Quest
- Tools: Unity, Figma, Blender, Final Cut Pro
Fresh Tracks is a rhythm, rogue-lite game on skis. A rogue-lite is a game that has a randomly generated map, permadeath, exploration, and resource management.
In the case of Fresh Tracks, by choosing which paths to follow, the play discovers new locations, upgrades, and surprises. They do this by mastering a core loop of skiing, collecting, dodging and attacking, players will enter a highly immersive flow state.
The Challenge
Fresh Tracks has rhythm-based, randomly generated levels. As a level designer, this heightened the risk of a few decisions and directions. Each ‘snippet’ of a level could be as short as about 30 seconds. In that 30 seconds, the beginning and end of the level had to be able to flow with the other snippets. Equally important was that the interactions themselves were aligned with the beat of the music, specifically the beats per minute. In short, I often found myself going back to the simple question of ‘does this feel fun?’
How do we ensure that randomly-generated, rhythm-based levels feel fun?
In short, I often found myself going back to the simple question of ‘does this feel fun?’
