∴Life is Strange – Wavelengths∴

Overview

    Wavelengths is a special bonus episode made for the Deluxe edition of Life Is Strange: True Colors. It features Steph stepping into the role as the player character in an exclusive experience set in the iconic Rocky Mountain Record Traders store and KRCT Radio Station. The story focuses on Steph’s life as the current newcomer to Haven Springs and how she develops over time towards the Steph we meet in the main game. Her journey forward also calls back to past relationships and trauma that she has been avoiding. I worked very closely with the Narrative, Environment, and Programming teams to help create new gameplay for the DLC. I was responsible for over half of the levels and scenes, trying to pack the returning level space with content, puzzles, gameplay, and new exploration opportunities for players to experience. 

Game Info

Developer: Deck Nine Games
Genre: Narrative Adventure
Publisher: Square Enix
Game Engine: Unreal 4
Platforms: Windows, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and Stadia
Team Size: Around 30
Release Date: Sept. 30, 2021

Tools Used

-Unreal Engine 4
-Jira Issue Tracker
-Confluence
-Perforce
-Photoshop
-Microsoft Office
-Draw.io Diagrams
-Playwrite
-Storyteller

General

• Created a 2D layout and helped environment with a 3D greybox of the new storage space in the back of the Record Store
• Prototyped early versions of the Radio Gameplay scenes to iterate on flow, progression, and to eliminate early logic issues
• Taking Levels from concepts to Final Polish
• Designed and worked on new puzzles
• Altered existing navmesh, camera colliders, and interact points so that the finished level would function with updates to the store’s play space
• Set up NPC radio calls and related functionality
• Provide feedback for other departments and scenes owner by fellow level designers
• Fixed a variety of game logic and content bugs for both of my major levels
• Collaborated with other departments such as Narrative, Environment, Audio, Cinematic Artists, Programming, and Production to achieve project goals for the DLC

Documentation

• Created topdown maps, diagrams, and Level Design Docs for the DJ booth freelooks and record store gameplay freeroams
• Wrote and implemented hints/objectives to help give players direction for puzzles
• Worked on fixes for bug tickets sent my way
• Wrote bug tickets for myself, fellow level designers, and other departments
• Made pitch docs for environmental storytelling, additional content, and unique gameplay

Research

• Researched features and gameplay within the other Life is Strange titles
• Identified script errors that did not adhere to canon and helped come up with solutions
• Looked into DJ booth productions and increased general Audio knowledge with Audio team to help make DJ gameplay more realistic while retaining relative ease for players

My Levels

Bonus Episode: “Wavelengths” – Spring –

    The start of the DLC establishes that Steph has landed the DJ role in the KRCT Radio booth, despite her inexperience for the position, and the player is about to go through her first day of the new job as the caretaker of the whole record store. The freelook inside the DJ booth that follows establishes many of the core mechanics and features of the bonus episode; from playing records, to reading ads, and answering callers live on the air. The station isn’t exactly popular until Steph takes over, so the experience ends up being a fairly easy one. The idea was to give the player a foundation for these tasks and gradually increase the quantity and add challenges to contend with in future scenes. Stepping out of the booth allows players to walk around the familiar environment of the record store, only it’s a year in the past and differences are all over the place. Having had some experience revamping previous levels via large time differences in the last game we worked on, my goal was to really crank this up for this scene in particular, adding back recognizable objects and set pieces over time, ideally making this familiar space feel as unique as possible. (1:45 – 42:00)

Bonus Episode: “Wavelengths” – Summer –

    In contrast to the opening level, Steph now seems to have gotten the hang of the job, exuding confidence on the radio, and has begun to put her own personality into the store’s decor and presence. The player is once again tasked with some ad reads, answering a few calls, and playing music, but now with some additional tasks. Outside of some optional content that can be engaged with, the player is now required to solve a lock combination puzzle to play a special record request and end the scene by packing up her pride decorations from around the store. The combination puzzle was a fun one to help design; working with the Art and Narrative teams to ensure we had all of the necessary pieces scattered strategically around the map to promote exploration and extra content. Summer sees some changes to the play space, but a significant inclusion is the initial opening of the storage room to complete the puzzle, learn more about the store’s history, and simply having a new area to explore. Notably, I designed the storage room to be filled with both junk and familiar main game assets at first, blocking a majority of the playspace. This results in an ever developing freeroam space for the Fall and Winter seasons. I even pushed for some of the returning decorations to be found within that junk, so that they could be introduced into the main store directly via player choices and interactions throughout the DLC, adding to a player’s agency for future level updates.  (42:00 – 1:25:25)