How it started

Above, see an in-game map of Willamette for Dead Rising 4. It features North Peak and the army base. The area near the yellow diamond showcases level designs that I owned from concept to release. In army base interiors, I expanded from greyblock to deliver an "audio play" of the base being overrun with brief vignettes in gameplay.

As a Level Designer, I owned encounters, zombie placement, & gameplay elements.

DR4's world map is divided into a large sectorized grid to maximize zombie counts. So I became an expert on state persistence for objects when crossing sectors; also gaining other technical skills. My direct support led to the creation of plug & socket encounters that dynamically load geometry & enemy variants on entering a sector.

See more about my contributions here.

How it's going in 2026

Pictured Opposite:
The Scatter is the second floor of the Harmony dungeon in Witherbloom.

It is an amazing level that breaks out of the traditional dungeon format by asking the player to navigate paths of floating islands, with an open feeling design that invites players to explore.

My role on this level was to solve flow and gameplay issues from the initial greyblock phase onwards. I place encounters, resources, and all gameplay interactables and elements aside from the teleporters.

The challenge for this level was creating appropriate visual context for all of the players' interactions with teleporters. The design also has a lot of quirks that needed to be address for multiplayer, so parties do not get scattered.

Download the upsized version of map to see it at greater level of detail.
wb_thescatter_flowandencounters.png
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Contributions to Stika, Iklo Studios, 2024

As a Level Designer and UE5 Generalist on Stika, I :
  • Took in-game captures of trees and forest scenes
    • Some of my visual explorations (opposite) established mood well enough to set new intentions for promo art 
    • Used captures to create postcards for demo level that give the illusion of wider forest beyond playable areas
  • Scripted object behaviours for team's GDC 2024 Demo
  • Sculpted terrain: molding it into a cohesive space (below)

James Dodge makes levels for open worlds