Cecilia Wretemark-Hauck // Level Design
Concept
Project Kenon is a movement-centric first-person space adventure where players must master the grappling-hook mechanic to traverse dramatic, debris-filled environments and retrieve a vital item to escape.
The game blends movement mastery, exploration, and survival, all set within an epic space scrapyard.
Project Duration: 4 weeks
Team Size: 7 members
Engine: Unreal Engine
Version Control: Perforce
Design Tools: Miro
Project Management: Jira, Google Docs
Production: Futuregames GP4
Status: 30-minute polished demo, final tweaks in progress
Contribution
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Level Design: Designed and built the entire playable level structure, from early blockout to final set dressing.
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Movement Design: Shaped the flow and pacing of traversal for both skilled and casual players; tuned the level around the grapple and movement mechanics.
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Environmental Storytelling: Created narrative flow through architecture, lighting, environmental composition and storytelling elements such as the Log pick-ups.
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Guidance Systems: Developed in-world navigation using light, color, and landmarks—minimizing dependence on UI.
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Procedural Content Generation (PCG): Implemented PCG volumes and spline systems to generate asteroid fields and carve traversal paths.
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Set Dressing: Combined procedural generation with hand-placed assets to balance visual impact, movement flow and the overall player experience.
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Mechanic Influence: Contributed feedback and iteration on the grapple mechanic, player movement feel, and pickup behaviour.
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Solo Production: Managed a large-scale environment independently, ensuring consistent visual language and player experience.
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Cross-Disciplinary Communication: Collaborated with tech and design departments to align level flow, mechanics, and narrative tone.
Section 01
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Learning Section
- Asteroid Filed
Section 02
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Skill Check
- Gravity Swing Section
Section 03
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Story Driven Section
- Crashed Spaceship & Scrapyard
Spatial Choreography
The core of the experience lies in the movement system.
I gave players multiple options: skilled players can refine their mastery of the grapple mechanic, while new players can still enjoy smooth traversal and naturally improve over time.
I think of my approach as spatial choreography—a design philosophy that combines gameplay flow and emotional atmosphere.
I worked with the contrast between “corridors and cathedrals”:
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Corridors are narrow, and intense—spaces where players can either accelerate and feel the rush or are forced to carefully navigate the space.
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Cathedrals are vast, open, and awe-inspiring—evoking the spiritual feeling of standing before something immense.
Corridors and Cathedrals
This rhythm between confined and monumental spaces creates both gameplay variety and emotional resonance.
Guidance
The goal was to make guidance feel natural—part of the world’s logic, not an overlay.
Guidance & Orientation
Disorientation is a central mechanic—but it should never become frustrating.
To help players orientate without relying on UI, I designed an in-world guidance system using light, color, and environmental cues. By learning to read the world itself, players experience moments of satisfaction and mastery as they find their own path and navigate successfully.
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Blinking blue lights show the path forward, turning red once passed, clearly indicating direction.
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Landmarks and lighting contrasts help players reorient after spinning collisions.
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Pickups are strategically placed along the main path, visible through a helmet UI indicator, encouraging exploration but keeping navigation intuitive.
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A trail of debris and broken ship parts reinforces directionality without breaking immersion.
Storytelling
Space itself carries an emotional charge: most of us will never go there, yet we all feel its mystery, vastness, and loneliness.
I wanted to capture that emotion through architecture, scale, and atmosphere.
The level is divided into three major sections, each with its own narrative and emotional tone:
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Asteroid Field (Learning Phase) – A semi-enclosed space that teaches navigation and grappling. The area opens up dramatically to reveal a large orange planet, guiding the player visually and emotionally.
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Gravity Swing Section – The player faces black holes and environmental hazards, using learned mechanics to swing between obstacles. This section tests mastery and builds tension.
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Crashed Spaceship Interior – A more confined and story-driven area filled with hazards,and environmental storytelling. It ends with a dramatic scrapyard and a mysterious monument, hinting at untold histories.
Procedural Content Generator
My feedback on the grapple mechanic, pickup interaction, and overall movement feel had a major influence on the final player experience.
Technical Execution
As the level designer and set dresser, I worked extensively with Procedural Content Generation (PCG) to fill vast areas efficiently while maintaining handcrafted quality.
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PCG Volumes were used to spawn asteroid and scrap fields.
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Splines carved navigable paths through them.
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Hand-placed assets ensured visual storytelling and gameplay clarity within the generated spaces.
I collaborated closely with technical designers, gameplay designers, and programmers, using and refining their tools—for example, the hazard spawner and movement systems.
Collaboration & Development
Because movement mechanics and tools were developed simultaneously with level design, communication and iteration were essential.
I often worked before the final mechanics were implemented, developing a practice I call “Embody the Master” — like a painter sketching with bold strokes, shaping the flow and structure of the level from intuition and spatial understanding.
Working solo on a large-scale environment taught me to balance vision and feasibility, while coordinating with others to ensure that every part of the game—mechanics, art, and level flow—supported the intended player experience.
Embody The Master
The result is a large, emotionally charged level that gives players the sense of having gone on a journey—they’ve explored, survived, and witnessed the vast beauty of space through movement and discovery.
Take aways
A Blank Canvas
The biggest lesson from Project Kenon was learning to design in parallel with evolving mechanics—to stay adaptable, creative, and collaborative under uncertainty.
Working this way allowed me to have a significant impact on the overall gameplay and the final player experience.
Embody the Master
Because many of the core mechanics were still in development, I created a practice I call “Embody the Master.”
In this method, I imagine myself as one of the great painters—using broad, expressive strokes to “paint” the structure of the level before all systems are in place. This helped me shape the flow, rhythm, and emotional impact early on.
Player Agency
My design philosophy was to guide players naturally—using environmental elements already present in the level to lead exploration and reward curiosity.
Manageable Scope
As the sole level designer with a limited timeframe—and additional responsibilities in set dressing and lighting—I had to stay organized and prioritize efficiently.
For me, gameplay always comes first, so I focused my time on tasks that directly affected the player experience and movement flow.