Levels, environments, enemies, and more
I was fortunate to be a part of the team which created a series of Minecraft Legends DLC level packages known as Myths from start to finish and then further through to other post-publishing projects with artistic and design input. Spanning several levels with unique biomes and obstacles, the adventure calls for players to best hordes of rodent Gnawlings with allies and purge the lands of evil!
"In this epic adventure, the Ichorous Serpent has taken over the once serene Grove, and the animals living there need your help. This DLC features lush environments, adorable animals, challenging enemies, and a final boss that only a true hero like you can face. Are you ready to save the Grove? Make sure you check out the skins included in this DLC as well!"
-Mojang, 2023, Minecraft Legends
My main contributions to this project involved concept art, asset design, and level implementation. Many of my works came to be key inspirations for our final productions, and I was capable of working closely with levels to make sure that they were properly navigable with correctly oriented features. I also had the opportunity to design the entirety of the Nexus hub world and the final boss room with custom blocks and features I created. In addition, much of my concept and environment art has been used in my team's productions for Minecraft Legends, especially regarding character skins, enemy animations, and other Myths.
With many of the existing features of Minecraft Legends, most of our team's work centered on level design and custom interactions. As opposed to the regular unit commands and building functions which Minecraft Legends is focused in, our team also created a variety of spells to fight enemies and surpass barriers- many of which I playtested rigorously for bug review.
Technical tools and implementation of elements
Block design from Java to Legends: I used bespoke tools in order to create custom blocks with new textures and features in Maya, exporting them into .json files to import them into Java Minecraft, where our team would then convert the block data into final level data for Minecraft Legends. This required me to work closely with developers and to be able to review our pipeline for bugs and errors through the series of automations facilitated by our plug-ins and scripts. Because of Minecraft Legends' expanded capability for rendering, I also was able to implement PBR textures and emissive maps to create pieces of a more vivid environment, especially doing so for the sole design of the Nexus area of the game from start to finish.
World Edit tools and environmental population: In order to effectively create spaces within levels, our team utilized World Edit and other Java scripts in order to modify terrains and blocks on a large scale. I was responsible in part for creating spaces and ensuring that elements were positioned and oriented correctly for the sake of exploration and progression. A big part of this was also about grayboxing and then applying our custom blocks into the environment, which was best done using these brush and editing tools for the maps. I had several areas that I was responsible for ensuring clear level progression and design language for so that players would not get too lost or go too far off the beaten path.
Cross-level gameplay testing: In this Myth and many more, I was a consistent QA tester focusing on platforming, bounding boxes, enemy behaviors, difficulty balance, mechanical function, environmental clipping, and more. A vital part of this involved playing through multiple levels in multiple playthroughs while actively choosing different paths of progression and unexpected options, as well as ensuring that the features of the level guided players towards a successful outcome rather than leading them off course.
See our Myths for yourself!
