Claire Fingerhut
Technical Game Designer
Ex Vivo
Platform
PC
Tools Used
Unity
Roles
Game Designer, Gameplay Programmer (C#), Weapon Animator, Level + Encounter Designer, Combat Designer
Duration
6 weeks
Ex Vivo is a sci-fi, evil lab-themed 3D first-person shooter done over a 6-week game period. Players act as a laboratory creation breaking out of the facility, taking down the other aggressive monster creations, and finally confronting the evil scientist who created you. The game was inspired by one of my favorite Looney Tunes episodes, "Water Water Every Hare", which involves an evil scientist's monster creations, labyrinthine shelves and corridors, and a mysterious, surrealist environment.
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I worked on this project with one other designer, and we split level design and combat encounter design responsibilities. Our focus was on the prototype and proof of concept, so we did not include much art. The laser gun model was previously done by me in 2022.
Responsibilities
â–ª Ideated, designed, scripted, & prototyped shooter linear campaign level
â–ª Scripted and animated weapon swapping and melee/gun attacks/cooldowns
â–ª Created ranged and melee enemy types, and programmed their behavior, aggression, and movement
â–ª Designed half of level & enemy encounter design, including linear & arena encounters and area progression
â–ª Combined & polished levels & encounters into final prototype
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Team
Audrey Brooks
Level Design, Encounter Design
Key Features
â–ª Melee weapon and ranged laser gun that player can swap between
â–ª Melee enemy type that swarms player and has a close-range periodic attack
â–ª Ranged enemy type that maintains distance range from player and shoots fireballs at player
â–ª Linear sections where player must find keys or press buttons to unlock the next area
â–ª Arena fights where player must kill all enemies to unlock the next area
â–ª Final boss fight with altered ranged enemy, throws glass beakers at player
â–ª Poison environmental hazards that damage player scaling based on how long player is exposed to it
My level sketches with some certain goals I had in mind for each section. For the top sketch, I wanted a symmetrical arena with central hazards (the circles) and an upper level that hugs the walls.
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The second drawing has a similar idea with the upper level, but for this one I wanted some tighter angles and thinner spaces to create some more chokepoints.
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The final sketch is an idea for the boss level to take place in an old-fashioned operating theater. I liked the thematic idea of engaging with the evil scientist in a space that feels like his domain, as well as including the colosseum tiered seating to feel more like a battle.
I sketched out some shorter room sections that would be more for traversal than full enemy encounters. The left room is inspired by one of the rooms in the Looney Tunes episode which is full of cabinets and shelves dividing up the space, meant to feel frantic and to give the sense of being turned around and in a bit of a maze.
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The right sketch is for a section where the player ascends a massive spiral staircase. I was inspired by a section in Doom Eternal where the player must open 9 closed cages manually and kill the demons inside each cage.
There is some fun decision-making in that section that I wanted to draw from. I set up the staircase to have 3 tight offshoot rooms, two including a few demons to kill, and one including just health and ammo pickups. All three have a button in the back that must be pressed to open the door at the top. So the player might initially try to pass these small enemy encounters, but will find that they have to clear out the area to access the next room.