Midnight Girl is a 2D puzzle mystery game. I worked as intern Level Designer on the project in 2020. The game was released on Steam in 2023.
My responsibilities:
- Level design – design, sketching, setup in Unity
- Cutscenes – setup cutscenes in Cinemachine in Unity
- Audio design
Work example
I worked on 4 different levels. Here I will present the one I worked on the most: The Prison. Also called “The Stranger”, in the final game.
My job was to plan the navigation through the level, sketch it out, and lay it out in Unity.
When I joined, the artist/game designer had already designed the rooms and items found in the level, but had yet to figure out a path that would make sense.
Additionally, I set up in-game cutscenes and dialouges in Cinemachine within Unity, and worked on the sound design for the game.
The game takes place in France in 1965. You play as Monique: A young thief who is planning a big heist to get money to reunite with her father.
After a failed attempt at stealing a valuable item, Monique ends up in prison and must break out.
In this level, Monique is now in prison.
She hears another prisoner call to her. It’s the infamous “Night Owl” (Gustave). A big inspiration to her.
They agree to escape together. With the help of Gustave, Monique breaks free from her cell and must sneak around the prison to find a way out.
Places
- Laundry room.
- Stair case (intersection)
- Kitchen.
- Monique’s cell (Player start)
- Gustave’s cell.
- The control room.
- Phone room.
- The courtyard / outside.
Navigation
- Start in Monique’s cell (4).
- Continue through the stair case section (2) to talk to Gustave (5) through the door.
- First you must unlock his cell from the control room (6). Exit the building from the door at the ground level of the stair case.
- When outside, a cutscene plays, showing Monique that prison vans can drive out through a gate.
- Enter the control room from outside. Click the button. This room also contains coins from a “swear jar”.
- Go to Gustave. He can’t think of a plan before he gets coffee. Monique reluctantly agrees to get him some. She takes his cup.
- Go to the kitchen (3). Use the coins and cup to get coffee from the coffee machine.
- Hand Gustave his coffee.
The plan is to get a disguise and stage a prisoner transfer in a van. Gustave goes looking for keys to the van. Monique goes for a disguise. Gustave hands her a shiv. - With the shiv. Unscrew the vent in lower stair case, next to the phone room (7). Here is a disguise and a door to the second layer of the level.
- Dodge patrolling guards.
- Meet Gustave in the Warden’s office. He’ll complain that the disguise is dirty.
- Go wash and dry the disguise in laudry room (1).
- Return to Gustave with the clean disguise.
Gustave then escorts you outside (8), and you use the prison van to escape together.
Process/sketches
I tried to spread out item collection evenly between rooms, to make sure every location served a purpose.
An early version of the level. This included an infirmary, a hammer for a lock on a door, and several keys. It became too many doors to unlock in too many weird ways. We shifted to focus on unique tasks rather than constant door opening. Like doing laundry (while tring to escape). The absurdity of that task made it fun.
Eventually, I switched to doing quicker sketches because I became so visually familiar with the level that drawing was unnecessary. These simply contained names of the locations. This made it much easier and quicker for my own work.
I of course drew it when I needed to present my ideas to the others.
