Luke Dorman awarded Film Victoria Key Talent Placement Grant

Film Victoria continues to support game development in this state through funding initiatives such as its Key Talent Placement Grant. This program allows Victorian companies to engage with early or mid-career devs, providing studios such as Drop Bear Bytes with additional team-members, and giving young talent the opportunity to gain valuable hands-on game dev experience.

Luke Dorman has been a Junior Level Designer with Drop Bear Bytes for some time, and with this support from Film Vic we’re able to bring him on full time in his role on Broken Roads, and finally drop that ‘Junior’ from his job title.

So, to kick this off, please describe your role and what it's like working level design on a traditional cRPG like Broken Roads.

As a level designer on Broken Roads, I design in-game areas from the ground up informed by narrative elements such as quests and why the player arrives at the level, as well as visual elements such as environmental storytelling and visual density. From sketching levels up on paper to delicately fine-tuning the placements of in-game objects, it’s an extremely iterative process!

Designing levels for a traditional cRPG like Broken Roads has proven to be an interesting and new challenge for me, it’s not a genre I was particularly versed in previously and it’s opened up new ways of thinking through level design, both in terms of narrative and visual aspects.

We've also got you on a bunch of QA tasks as our 'first line' before sending to the publisher's QA team. What's it like knowing that if anything is wrong in the game, it's all your fault?

It’s an odd sense of total control - it feels strange to have as much knowledge as I do about all of the levels and their little idiosyncrasies. When it comes to bugs and issues with anything gameplay related, it’s usually something I raise with the dev team, but if I spot something visually off in a level during playtesting - maybe something is too big, or one object is clipping into another - I tend to jump into the scene in-engine and fix it as I see them pop up.

In some cases, I’ll spot something that takes a bit of creativity to fix. Take a look at these solar panels clipping into this back fence:

Bringing them forward a bit will make them look like they’re suspended in the air without anything supporting them, so I put some bits and pieces like tyre stacks and cinder blocks behind them to make it look more convincing.

When something does go through that I missed, it tends to be a sense of “How could I miss that!?” regardless of how easy it was to spot or not.

And how has your education helped in preparing you for this role?

University helped prepare me for this role in a couple of ways - experience in working in a team and communicating among multiple disciplines, and an understanding of game development as a pipeline. So many things go into making games, it helps to have an understanding of how different teams within a studio work and communicate with each other and how to communicate as an individual, as well as knowing the process of making a game and solidifying your role amongst everyone else’s.

Knowing hard skills in a design role is certainly a good thing, but it’s just as important to be willing to learn, adapt, communicate, and take criticism in a studio setting in order to grow as a developer.

You've been the recipient of a Key Placement Grant from Film Victoria (congrats!), who have been very supportive of Drop Bear Bytes over the years. Anything you would like to say about them and their support for games in Victoria?

I have nothing but great appreciation for Film Victoria. Not only do I appreciate that they support creative industries in Victoria as a whole, but the Key Placement Grant is something that excites me for anyone early in their career. I know how difficult it can be to break into an industry for someone early in their career, so to see Film Victoria willing to lift them up and make their start much more valuable is something I have a deep appreciation for. I am more than honoured to have been given this opportunity, Film Victoria will always have my gratitude.

Drop Bear Bytes' teams are split into Art, Narrative and Dev. Your job has you situated in the Art Dept, but you've also got arguably the most cross-team role in the company. How do you handle being across so many calls, tasks, channels and so on?

There is certainly a difficulty in this; different departments will have their own language, different individuals will have their own ways of explaining things or giving feedback, and different tasks sometimes require different ways of thinking. I think the key is to stay open-minded with what whoever I happen to be communicating with has to offer and being able to ask questions to clarify any concerns that I might have. Having daily stand-ups with our Producer and regular meetings with our Art Director is also especially helpful to keep track of what I’m working on.

What have been some highlight moments working in level design?

The anticipation for all of our announcements have always kept me on edge, it’s always exciting to share with my friends, family, and everyone else what we’ve all been working on. The Team17 announcement trailer was especially a fun one - watching the time like a hawk and waiting to start posting it in as many places as possible.

More highlights in this role are from commendations from my colleagues on my work, I’m truly blessed to be working with the folks of Drop Bear Bytes, it’s been an incredible start to my career. I would also be remiss to mention the very thing this blog is about - the Key Placement Grant has enabled me to become a full-time employee of Drop Bear Bytes, something I would never have expected to happen to me this early in my career.

And what has been the most challenging?

While I have had the title of Junior Level Designer for most of my time working with Drop Bear Bytes, I’ve still been the only fully dedicated level designer on the project. Because of this, there was a part of me that believed that I had to work a lot harder and be a lot better at the job than what was realistic this early in my career - no one is perfect, especially if it’s their first time on the job.

Only somewhat recently did I realize that, while everyone on the team is working hard to make the best product possible, you sometimes need to step back and admire the work you have already done in pursuit of that greatness to remind yourself just how much work you’ve put in.

You, like many people, are now working entirely remotely with a team spanning many timezones around the world. How has this been for you?

I’ve never minded being left to my own devices, but working from home is definitely an interesting experience. I haven’t had much experience in an on-site studio setting, but I’m a weird mix of introverted and extroverted - I enjoy spending most of my time at home, but I also find a lot of value in being around people. I might take to an office just as well as remote.

When it comes to timezones, I’m not usually too obstructed by them, but there are times where I do need something from a colleague in a different timezone or they need something from me. In these cases, I’ll send off a message with what I need from them and busy myself with whatever other tasks I have in the meantime.

What are you doing when you're not on Broken Roads?

These days, I spend my free time playing video games, Dungeons & Dragons, watching whatever comes up on my YouTube feed, or messing around with my own design ideas for a 2D fighting game - stay tuned for the next however many years it takes for me to make that!

We often tease you about being a furry, and for no good reason. Tell us, are you a legit furry or do you just like 2D furry fighting games?

There aren’t that many 2D furry fighting games that I know of, and to me, that is a problem. I guess that can easily change later down the line, definitely something I’d like to see.

What do you mean I avoided the question?

And finally, anything else you want to add?

Just that I’m so glad to be working with the people that I do, working at Drop Bear Bytes has been an amazing experience so far and I’m excited to see what’s next in store for us!