Xerme is a minimalistic puzzle-platformer game, developed by Acariño Games, and expected to release in 2025.
Players are dropped into a black and white world, where "energy" is the only source of color, as it tries to leave this strange planet.
The game features a small open world, open to exploration, that slowly opens up the main hub of the game; a giant tower, full of puzzles to solve.
-First Weeks:
I came onboard the 3rd of June of 2024, and during the first two weeks, I was tasked with familiarizing myself with the project; the lore, the mechanics, the puzzles, etc.
During this time, I played the demo of the game, which featured several sections very similar to what I would later be designing; I wrote an analysis document, giving some feedback on the mechanics, the level design, and writing about some bugs I encountered, and finally, I play-tested most of the puzzles they had designed up to that point, on a live call, with the lead puzzle designer, and giving my feedback about them.
These first weeks were very helpful, because I got very familiarized with the team, their methods, and the people around me, and, of course, learnt greatly about the game, and the philosophy behind it!
-Level Design Work:
After getting more comfortable with the team, I was tasked with designing the first area out of the three I would eventually work on.
The game's timeline features three distinct story beats where the player ventures out to explore new areas of the world, related to the puzzles they had been solving. I would be starting with the second level out of these three, clearly themed around "animals".
Due to the game not being fully released yet, I am not able to publicly share screenshots or any kind of gameplay of the blockings I developed during my stay at Acariño Games, but I have been given permission to share it, privatly, among any studios interested on my work.
Firstly, I was asked to brainstorm several ideas for the possible level, and the only requirement they gave me, was that it had to feature a riding section, introducing this new mechanic into the game. I was told to take my time, and after I had 3 different ideas sequenced, I had a meeting to discuss them.
Once the meeting was over, I came out with a more unified idea. My leads had taken their favorite sections out of the 3 sequences, and told me to make the level around them, so, I went back to work right after!
I began writing a more polished LDD, featuring a full layout of the different sections of the level, and accompanied by a sequence, describing the puzzles and procedures required to progress (and also possible cutscenes); a high-level descriptions of the areas where the action would take place; an intensity graph, color coded, and describing the key moments and emotions that the players should go through, and finally, a list of possible technical difficulties.
Once finished, I submitted the LDD to my team, and, as soon as it got approved, I dove right into the editor (Unreal Engine 5.3).
Here's one of the LDD's I wrote while working on Acariño (writen in Spanish ) →
LDD_Animales2_Xerme.docxI created a separate sub-level, and began placing grey blocks. My process involved the Cube Grid tool, already a staple of the Unreal workflow, and, due to the nature of this level, I also made heavy use of the, now deprecated, BSPs; this is because the additive and substractive blocks were very useful for making caves and similar structures, heavily featured in this level. I also used the landscape tools, but to a lesser degree (since it was mostly limited to caving in land, so the cave rooms would fit), and, to cleary display the intention of the level, I also made use of triggers and blueprints, to quickly script some beats of the level, like the collapse of some rocks that unlocking a new path.
After several iterations, taking feedback from the leads, and making the required changes, my level got green lit, and my work on Animals 2 came to an end.
← Here are some screenshots, taken from the finished blocking level, featuring a short explanation for each one of them.
[NDA]
After wrapping up work in Animals 2, I started brainstorming ideas for the next level, for which I had previously been briefed on, during the previous meeting. The level was to be featured earlier in the game, so I had less mechanics to play with, and most notably, I had to think the level as a previous step in the journey, so pacing, flow, and the spikes of interest had to be dialed down a little bit, to accomodate for this.
The process behind designing this section was very much the same as to what I had done for Animals 2; brainstorming different ideas, taking feedback, combining cool sections and making it all fit into a neat LDD.
The blocking process was also fairly similar, but due to the setting of this new level, descending along a rift, most of the geometry and traversals were built with the landscape tool. This caused some problems with the movement system featured in the game, where slides could suddently send the player up into the air, as if they bounced on a speed bump, so some extra days of work were dedicated to fixing this issue.
Plants 2 featured a lighter load in scripted events, as a result of being, chronologically, the first level, so I kept that in mind for the remaining level, which was to be the last in the timeline.
Some screenshots of the blockings featured in this level. →
[NDA]
Nearing the end of my internship, I finished working on Plants 2, and began brainstorming ideas for the last level, Machines 2, which would take place just outside the central tower.
As I had planned before, I was thinking on increasing the load on scripted scenes. My previous levels had a rising ammount of them the more the player progressed into the story, so I felt like continuing that pattern.
My first ideas were some risky puzzles with cinematic scenes, something in the style of the Uncharted series, and I began writing a short document. It would feature events like cave-ins, floodings, and walls collapsing.
I wrote two different sequences before the last meeting, and that was it.
-Final Thoughts:
Working on Acariño Games was one of the best things that could have happened to me during my college years. Getting some real world experience in the videogame industry is key nowadays, and Xerme is a great project, that can surely be a strong name on my portfolio.
The first few weeks, I was a bit concerned, because I wasn't so sure if I would be a good fit for the team, and my first tasks weren't so much what I was hoping for, but once I got assigned to purely level design work, and especially, once I got into the editor, everything clicked. Knowing that I had chosen this career path, made me very happy.
