Disclaimer
Palette Cleanser is still in development. We are currently in production, targeting a 1.0 release on 17/06/2025. The information on this page is subject to change, as some of the evidenced work and the page itself is unfinished.
About
Summary:
Palette Cleanser is a short casual Action-Adventure game using sliding as the main mechanic. The game puts the player in a miniature garden desaturated by color-eating aliens, and the player has to repaint the garden using his colorful slide. The game focuses on exploration and showing the players the result of their actions (the repainted parts of the garden)
Project details:
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Development time: 36 weeks (09/2024 - 06/2025)
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Team size: 22
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Role: Level Designer
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Engine: Unreal Engine 5
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Platforms: PC, Steam Deck
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Genre: Action-Adventure
Context:
This project was made during my third year of my education at Breda University of Applied Sciences. We had an entire year to create a game from scratch with a team of 22 people. We had to choose our own game tags as a team from a list provided by the teaching staff, and our team chose:
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Genre: Action-Adventure
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Where: Garden
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When: Future
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Mood: Hopeful
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Visual Direction: Miniature World
Project Role & Responsibilities
As the level designer on this project my responsibilities included:
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Creating level blockouts to validate my design ideas
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Created a modular level ingredient (spline tool) which allowed me to create and iterate on blockouts quickly and also made set dressing easier for environment artists
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Oversaw and collaborated on set dressing the level with the environment artists
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Research and concepting
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Playtesting and iteration
Gameplay Showcase:
Disclaimer: Game is in development, this is the progress as of early 05/2025
Modular level ingredient
One problem I was struggling with was creating smooth turns and edges when blocking out the paths. This was causing problems because the character could hit the edges of misaligned blockout meshes and stop dashing. I also noticed that the environment artists were struggling to replace and properly align the blockout meshes with their assets.
To help resolve these problems, I implemented this spline tool, which allowed me to create path blockouts with curved shapes a lot faster and easier and then artists could replace my blockouts with their assets with the click of a button, which sped up both the blockout, iteration, and set dressing process.
Design Intention
Using the slide as the main mechanic, my design intent was to create a level that felt like a fun skate park. I wanted to replicate the feeling of being at a open skate park and being able to follow the path that seems like the most fun.
Currently, there are 3 main objectives in the level that the players have to clear to complete the game, but they can be completed in any order. The intention was to give players the freedom to have a unique experience by following the paths that seem like the most fun to them.
Due to the environment art scope limitations, I decided to make the level in a relatively small area and to focus on verticality to keep the area that needs to be set dressed small, whilst allowing me to create more gameplay beats and beautiful vistas.
This is how the level looks like currently (assets are hidden for better visibility)
Playtesting and Iteration
Throughout the project's pipeline, the level went through multiple rounds of playtesting and iteration before I could finalize the layout of the level.
Showcase of map changes over time:
All the playtesting data was recorded in Confluence and presented to the team
Examples of playtesting documents:
This is a screenshot from the playtest document I recorded after conducting a playtest
This is a screenshot from the playtest document I recorded after conducting a playtest
This is a screenshot from the playtest document I recorded after conducting a playtest
To make sure I can achieve my goal of creating a level with branching paths that players can explore on their own pace I created this macro design document which helped me keep track of all the paths and the mechanics they focus on to make sure the paths are diverse and interesting to the players
Screenshots from the beat sheet document:
This is a screenshot from the beat sheet document
This is a screenshot from the beat sheet document
This is a screenshot from the beat sheet document