Afterlight

Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Genre: First-person platformer adventure
Role: Level Design Lead
Itch.io: https://nocoats.itch.io/afterlight

Overview

Afterlight is a first-person platforming adventure set in a mysterious underworld, where players journey alongside a ghostly companion to solve puzzles and escape. Originally created during a 3-day game jam, the project evolved into a month-long effort focused on "Funification", refining mechanics, levels, and pacing across five unique levels.

My Contribution

Led the level design team and designed tutorial level (Level 1) and the final level (Level 5), while also contributing to puzzle and layout refinement across the whole game.
Focused on crafting levels that progressively introduce mechanics and balanced challenges with clarity.

Features

A platforming experience
built for First Person

Stay with a
ghostly companion, Terry
to solve puzzles and survive

Explore 5 unique levels and escape the catacombs

Gameplay & Player Controls

We started with a simple idea for the core gameplay: the player character ended up in an afterlife catacomb where darkness hurts you and light heals you. Our goal for the core experience centers on the player completing various timed platforming challenges while interacting with a ghostly companion that players carry and throw to unlock gates and open paths.

Original concept sketch:
"Darkness hurt you & light heals you"

Gameplay: Running from one safe-zone light
to another

Controls are also intentionally kept simple to keep the focus on platforming. Aside from standard movement ([WASD] to move, [Space] to jump), interactions with Terry are mapped to the Left Mouse Button, keeping the controls straightforward and intuitive.

Carry Terry companion's light also keeps player safe

Solve Puzzles Throw Terry to trigger path forward, risk danger in darkness

Player's Companion: Terry the Ghost

In Afterlight, players must rely not only on their platforming skills but also on their ghostly companion to overcome challenges. Terry helps the player by emitting a healing light, while the player helps him reach trigger plates to unlock paths and solve puzzles. This mutual dependence between the player and Terry embodies my design vision for the game’s core “companion” concept.

Terry the Ghost illustrations sketch

Terry the Ghost in-game model

Throw & Recall: the player can throw Terry along a set trajectory, and if he doesn’t hit a trigger plate, he will automatically return back to the player.

Carrying Terry

Throw & recall Terry

Voice Lines: To give Terry more personality, we added voice lines with in-game subtitles. He comments on the player’s throws, health, and surroundings with a slightly snarky tone, adding liveliness and keeping players engaged and accompanied throughout their journey.

Examples of Terry's voice lines & subtitles

Guidance: When arriving at a new puzzle, Terry will also give the player hints on how to solve the puzzle.

Examples of Terry's guidance & hints

Concept for each level

During "Funification", we want to give the player a more comprehensive experience by having more levels and gradual difficulty ramp, so we completely rethought how to design each level by giving them a concept design first before actual implementation:

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Phase 1: Jumping &
Basics of survival