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Code S-44 

2019

PROJECT CONTEXT

Our graduation project from Bellecour École, Code S-44, was created within a year by a small student team. I helped the team as a Lead and Level Designer. 

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Code S-44 is a stealth, aventure game. You play as S-44, a spider bot that can climb on litteraly every surfaces (even its enemies).  

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The game have been crafted with Unity 2018 and C#. We used Confluence and Jira as design/management tools, and ProBuilder/Maya for the level design. 

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-> Download the game on Steam, right here.

WORK HIGHLIGHT

On Code S-44 I had two roles, which came with different area of focus. As a LD, I worked on : 

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- Establishing a level design philosophy - After studies and researches, elaboration of design guidelines and golden rules.

- Creation of a level design kit - Creation of a blockout version of that kit, later used to produce 5 levels.

- Production of 2 levels - Creation of 2 levels, including the tutorial. Collaborated with artists on the visuals and programmer on the scripting.

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My other role, lead designer, consisted of the following : 

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Scoping and planning - Support to the producer on the scoping of the project as well as the tasks creation for the design team (7 persons, using Jira).

Support to the design team - Helped or found help when the team was stuck on design problems. 

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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

After exploring different structures for the levels (ranging from very linear to widely open), the team established early on the philosophy behind S-44 levels. We decided to go for something close to the modern Hitman games from IO interactive, for following reasons : 

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- it provides a sense of exploration

It makes progression and pacing still manageable 

- it encourages replayability

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Next, we chose to create a modular level design kit in order to build interesting environments, while remaining flexible, as well as to maintain a high iteration speed. We were very inspired by the Bestheda approach of modular LD (GDC talk by Joel Burgress and Nate Purkeypile).

1_ARRIVAL

1_Arrival is the first level of the game. 

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Its purpose is to introduce the player to the 3C and to the universe of the game.

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We choose to split the level in two parts:

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First part - providing a safe space, with very simple puzzle, to help players accommodate with the 3C and basic mechanics (Interactable and Checkpoints).

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Second part - introducing players to the enemies, with simple detection system and stealth basics.  

3_UNEXPECTED

3_Unexpected is the third level of the game. 

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My design goals were to provide some unexpected problems and solutions, as well as introducing T.0.N.Y., a main character in the story.

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The level is also split in two parts:

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First part - challenging the players on what they already knows (guards), in a more demanding way.

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Second part - introducing a new mechanic - the drop - with a little bit of backtracking, and then a long open stealth sequence.

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