Elysian Siege - Game Design Breakdown

2.5D Platformer · Unreal Engine 5 · PC (Steam) · Team of ~20 people · Hellhound Games, ESAT 2024/2025

🎮 View on Steam · 📄 View GDD Presentation

🧭 What is Elysian Siege?

Elysian Siege is a 2.5D platformer demo developed in Unreal Engine 5 during the 2024/2025 academic year at ESAT, with a multidisciplinary team of approximately 20 people across Design, Art, and Programming departments.

The game follows Keziah, an angel acolyte unexpectedly ascended who must recover the Tear of Creation to prevent a war between the Celestials - divine beings in civil war - and the Sinborn, exiles led by Derisionne, the Prince of Deceit.

🎯 My Role in the Project

Within the Design team, my main responsibilities were:

Mechanics & System Design — Full design of the player mechanics system
Level Design — Design and construction of Level 1 (world-integrated tutorial)
Narrative Design — Dialogues and narrative design
Documentation — Game Pitch and full GDD
Interdepartmental Coordination — Communication between Art, Programming, and Design
Task Prioritization — Design backlog management and decision-making

⚙️ Player Mechanics System

The movement system was built around 6 mechanics with a clear goal: make the player feel absolute control, and ensure combat never interrupts the platforming flow.

Mechanic	Design Function
Dash-Attack	The only way to eliminate enemies. Dual function: movement + combat. Replaces the double jump.
Jump	Variable height control, preserves momentum. Foundation of all interactions.
Wall Jump	Verticality and evasion. Can be combined with Dash for quick repositioning.
Wall Grab	Specific anchor points (not free) to control the rhythm of level design.
Glide	Controlled descent. Triggers camera zoom out. Crosses long distances.