Ronny Josch
Level Designer
Currently working as a Level Designer at Ubisoft Massive Entertainment
Secrets of the Spires is the second DLC story pack for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. It features the Spires of the Clouded Forest, a spectacular new mountainous region in Pandora.
Project Highlights:
Level Designer
Capital Hub Area
I was the level design owner of the main capital hub space of the DLC. This space was used for major story beats and as an area where players can craft, trade etc.
Main Mission Level
I led the design of one of the largest DLC levels, averaging an hour of gameplay and featuring stealth, combat, puzzles, and platforming sections.
Support on Other Levels
Using my scripting skills, I managed to finish my level ahead of schedule, leaving extra time to support the team.
Main Mission Aerial Encounter
For the DLC's final mission I designed and implemented a difficult aerial encounter that would engage the player.
A first-person, action-adventure game set in the open world of the Western Frontier of Pandora.
Project Highlights:
Role
Technical Level Designer
Open World Activities
As the Technical Owner, I oversaw the technical side of the majority of key activities available to players in the open world.
Level Design & Gameplay Assets
Managed technical implementation of assets, served as technical owner for ammo pickups & skill flowers, and supported teams.
Animation Scripts & Cutscenes
Developed diverse animation templates, optimized workflows, implemented cutscenes & animations, and facilitated onboarding for supporting studios.
Systematic Lighting Network
Scripted a dynamic light system altering specific lights based on location conditions, such as simulating power outages or activating assets.
Technical Support
Supported teams with advanced visual scripting, testing gyms, editor icons, technical validations, prototypes, bug fixing and more.
Show & Tells
Held Show & Tell presentations, created highlight reel videos, managed footage, edited, and presented globally.
Project Exhibited
A first-player stealth game, set in the Mediterranean 1960s, created in Unreal Engine 4. Featuring branching level design, with many paths the player can take to get to their goal.
Project Highlights:
Level Design
Created 1/3 of the game's playspaces, creating blockouts, placing A.I., balancing gameplay, while maintaining cross-discipline communication.
Level Design Supervisor
In order to ensure work consistency, it was my responsibility to oversee a team of 5 level designers and to establish all building metrics & rational LD proposals
Game Design
Defined the core user experience, performed competitor analyses (genre & gameplay mechanics) and defined the macro gameplay loop.
Remote Work
Due to COVID-19 our team had to self-sufficiently work from home for half of the game's development time which required a high degree of adaptability
Bit-Buster
A cooperative 2-player twin-stick shooter in which both players share a single projectile. The levels are highly destructible and built out of voxels.
Project Highlights:
Level Design
Created 1 full level and with that 50% of the game's content. I worked at all level design aspects from research, to sketching, to building, to iterating, etc.
Level Design Lead
It was my responsibility that the environment artists and level designers communicated properly and met deadlines.
Pre-Production
I was solely responsible for creating the level design pipelines and documentation to onboard new people joining our project.
Custom Engine
The engine was developed by programmers of our university in 6 months. We learned it in a few weeks and created the entire game with it.
Portal 2
A passion project for Portal 2, in which I created a community puzzle level, which ended up being featured on the front page of the Steam workshop.
Project Highlights:
Level Design
I used puzzle design and a variety of Portal's established mechanics, to create a challenging level for the Portal 2 community to master.
Passion Project
The project was created by myself in my own spare time, fueled by my passion for the intrigate puzzle mechanics that Portal provides.
Popularity
The level was extremely well received and was featured on the front-side of the Steam Workshop. The level has a 5/5 star rating with 1000+ votes.
Community Management
I managed a lot of comments and feedback that my level received. Partly from the core Portal 2 community and partly from puzzle game fans.