KevTheDevGames

Starting The Project

I start every project by building a strong visual and thematic foundation—studying environments, moods, and references that match the experience I want to create. For this project, my time working in large retail stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s gave me a real advantage, helping me design spaces that felt natural and believable compared to more abstract environments like alien worlds or creepy cabins.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time in supermarkets, and those memories helped shape layouts that feel both natural and a bit chaotic. I also referenced real-world store layouts to better visualize the space before translating it into my initial paper maps.

This phase ensures that all design decisions are grounded in a cohesive vision before production begins.

Real-world Experience — Working in large retail environments like Home Depot and Lowe’s helped inform and guide the overall layout and flow of the map.

Real-world Layouts — Referencing familiar American store layouts grounded the environment and subtly guided player navigation (e.g., registers at the front, clearly defined aisles like dairy or produce).

Playground — Aimed to capture the chaotic energy of a playground / gym, encouraging players to run, jump, climb, and interact with the environment in dynamic ways.

Basic Loop:

The core goal was to capture the chaotic, goofy nature of “fighting over products,” so we focused on establishing the gameplay loop early in development. Through iteration, we refined the experience while intentionally keeping the design simple to maintain scope and ensure a polished result.

The core gameplay loop was simple: collect TP and return it to your safe pile. Early on, I identified the need for additional mechanics to make the environment feel more hazardous and engaging, which led me to propose:

Environmental Hazards — Spills were introduced as a simple, comedic hazard. Contact would cause players to slip, temporarily lose control, and drop any TP they were carrying, adding risk to movement and resource management.

Environmental Verticality — I incorporated elevated routes, such as the tops of shelves, to provide multiple traversal options. This created more dynamic movement, increased player choice, and opened up opportunities for strategy and evasion.

Area you’d bring your TP

Paper Map v1

With this project I only drew some simplistic paper maps, mostly to help visualize the store layout and plan routes. After doing this, I went straight into the editor to start testing the concept. I relied more on “how it plays” with this project. It was also easier to communicate the map with the other developer by doing this. The simplistic simple map did focus on:

• Spatial relationships between areas
• TP (pickup) placement and pacing
• Navigation clarity and overall flow
• Environmental Hazards placement
• Identifying POIs and progression beats

This version acts as a blueprint for the level and directly informs the blockout phase. This game was crucial to feel fun before anything else. If it didn’t play well in 3D then the paper maps really wouldn’t mean much.

Blocking Out

With the layout established, I move into the engine (in this case, Unreal Engine 4) to begin blocking out the level. This is one of — if not the — most important parts of my design process. Maps are great for organizing ideas, but you don’t truly know how something feels until you play it. For this project is was extra important to nail the layout in 3D so I jumped straight in to working on hazards, verticality, TP placement, etc. I wanted to make sure it felt FUN and like you were at playground. Gameplay needed to feel fast-paced and chaotic.

My focus during blockout is:

• Ensures the map felt “fun” and cohesive before anything else was implemented
• Easy readability and shared understanding
• A reliable reference throughout development
• Player scale and proportions
• Traversal flow and pacing
• Playground / Gym

I also made a little “Playground / Gym” to really get an understanding how the character movement would interact with certain objects. Mostly in relation to movement and the scale of things, i.e is this too high to jump? Will this break up the movement?

Finalizing the Map(s)

Once the layout has been refined through iteration, I move into finalization With this project, I decided to add additional props and other clutter to really help sell that “destroyed” look. This is time to really make it look pretty.
This included:

• Cleaning up or replacing geometry
• Ensuring flow and readability are clear
• Confirming the level supports gameplay, story, and player expectations
• Replacing placeholder textures
• Finalizing lighting, art, and layout — this is when the cake is fully baked
• Adding additional props, set dressing, clutter, etc.
• MAKING SURE IT’S PROPERLY OPTIMIZED

Extra Content:

Clear, This project allowed me to begin experimenting with some extra content as well. We were using the ALSV4, which allowed me to create some additional game modes that focused solely on the “parkour” and platforming aspect of the game.

It timed players to see how fast they could complete the course / how many TP they could collect along the way. I wanted it to feel different from initial loop without feeling like an entirely different game. So I these extra maps were meant to feel silly and cool. Like they were meant to be that cool “bonus mode”.

I To achieve this I designed a handful of different mapst

• Neon Cities
• Giant Store (you are tiny)
• Outer space
• Gym warehouse (gym was repurposed for this mode)

I was able to experiment a lot with these modes and really test the players ability. e.

It was around this time we were aiming to launch in Early access. So it was really cool to have been able to create some bonus content before that.

Audio

For this project I wanted to create some goofy “announcer” audio. Inspired by the intercom pages I’d frequently hear / have to make when working in these big store I thought it would be funny if I wrote / recorded some audio lines that would be used to capture the goofiness of these stores. y

• Wrote Announcer Lines
• Recorded / Edited Audio lines with Audacity

Final Thoughts:

This was a pretty fun project to work on, I learned a ton about the Unreal Engine 4 workflow, how to manage multiple maps, create new content while still marinating a realistic scope, and even making Multiplayer maps Although not some hit breakout game, it was really fun to work with my friend to create our first real steam published game. Looking back I’d definitely improve the layout of the store by adding specific sections that would each feature a unique mechanic based on the aisle / spill type, etc. But overall, I am happy with how it turned out!