The Simpsons Game

Level Designer

I was the first Level Designer on the project and immediately focused on finalizing the level creation pipeline. In addition to contributing to the designs for all of the missions, I was also charged with putting our first level through the pipeline from concept to polish as the gate deliverable to enter production.

Around the World in 80 Bites

Around the World in 80 Bites was that first level that I put through the production pipeline. It was based in an eating contest where Homer gets to use his new video game powers to his advantage.

I started by taking the concept pieces for the level and using Maya to create a rough version of the space. After adding the appropriate markup and AI, this became a fully playable space and could then be moved on to the first art pass.

Along with using the first part of the level as a way to teach the player how to use Homer's new abilities, I wanted to be sure and reinforce the mechanics at the end. I designed the Statue of Liberty boss battle to use a combination of his downward slam to drop the defenses and then a timed dash to hit the three weak spots.

The finished version of Around the World in 80 Bites can be viewed here.

Springfield Hub

The Springfield Hub was the "Open World" section of the game that controlled the current state of the game based on completion of missions. Players could access their next mission, find collectibles, or just explore and listen to the large amount of dialogue from the citizens.

I began by using Maya to import modeled versions of buildings found in episodes of the show and then building terrain to accommodate everything. I found early that it was best to focus on building a Springfield unique to our set of game requirements and not try to emulate the show.

Each of the four playable characters had their own collectible type that I was able to place around the city. I focused on creating puzzles and interactions that tested the player's use of the character's mechanics. There's a lot of them around the city which extended the potential playtime of the city extensively.

The game had tons of dialogue written by the show's writers and one of my major tasks was getting the citizens into the world and ensuring that the player was able to experience it. It was sometimes a challenge to get a density of characters spawning at one time, but I found creative solutions to help ensure the player came across funny lines often.