https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGbOfJh-bVg
https://canva.link/csi2gdgzrxrodwc
Elysian Siege is a 2.5D platformer demo developed in Unreal Engine 5 during the 2024/2025 academic year at ESAT, with a multidisciplinary team of approximately 20 people across Design, Art, and Programming departments.
The game follows Keziah, an angel acolyte unexpectedly ascended who must recover the Tear of Creation to prevent a war between the Celestials - divine beings in civil war - and the Sinborn, exiles led by Derisionne, the Prince of Deceit.
Within the Design team, my main responsibilities were:
Mechanics & System Design
Design of allplayer systems
Level Design
Level 01 Design - Beatcharts, flowcharts, layouts and engine implementation.
Narrative Design
Barks, Flowcharts, and Dialogue Engine implementation.
Documentation
Game Pitch and GDD.
graph LR
slowPace[Slow Pace] --> Playtests[Playtests]
Playtests[Playtests] --> MetroidvaniaExploration[Metroidvania Exploration]
MetroidvaniaExploration[Metroidvania Exploration] --> ProductionLimits[Production Limits]
ProductionLimits[Production limits] --> DashGlide[Dash & Glide]
DashGlide[Dash & Glide] --> arcade[Arcade Platformer 2.5D]
At the start, our premise was to develop a side-scrolling platformer, but with 3D art. The main design pillar throughout the project was to focus on movement, downplaying combat - treating it more as an obstacle than a mechanically challenging system.
With that in mind, we envisioned a slow-to-medium-paced game intended to offer a reflective, thoughtful experience. The goal was to achieve fluid player movement through responsive controls and mechanics centered around mobility.
Initially, the core mechanic was time-slowing. Levels and other elements were designed around this ability, so that overcoming challenges would rely on analyzing the environment. However, after early research and playtests, we realized the slow pacing might not fit the kind of experience we wanted.
A faster rhythm began to emerge - one focused more on exploration and interaction. That shift brought us to our main inspirations: Metroidvanias.
Most relevant references
It was the beginning of a big change. With the altered pace, our unique mechanic came into question. The project had to reinvent itself - and we had to adapt alongside it.
Due to production constraints and evolving needs, we were forced to alter the proposed mechanics, which drastically changed the game's pace. The time-slowing concept and environmental interactions were removed, replaced by more traditional platforming mechanics.
This led to the introduction of dash and glide, which added extra mobility but significantly sped up the overall rhythm of gameplay.
Given the project's tight timeline, we were working simultaneously on documentation, level design, and mechanics development. These major changes inevitably affected level design. We managed to partially adapt the existing levels to the new gameplay rhythm, but this introduced one of our biggest recurring problems: player guidance.
Originally, exploration was our main focus, so explicit guidance wasn't a priority. Later, as the game evolved, we modified levels to follow a more linear path, though not all of them could be reworked due to time constraints.