Hero
Hero was an open-world action game with a darker take on building your own superhero. Set in a city flooded and left in ruins after a massive natural disaster, it let players combine powers through a skill-purchasing system. Enhanced jumping, wind, teleportation, fire, super strength, and super speed were among the options. Midway closed before the game was completed.
Building the City Hubs
I joined Midway as a level design intern while I was still in college. On Hero, I blocked out three open-world hubs, including terrain and city layouts. Each was a slice of the city where players could roam freely, with specific locations also serving as spaces for missions.
The city provided a persistent setting, but taking a mission could activate enemies, combat, and other events in an alley or another part of the hub. My work involved both the larger layout and the spaces that could support those scenarios. On a relatively small team, I had room to explore ideas and build content for approval, giving me considerable creative freedom as an intern.
Creating Mission Scenarios
One scenario I built began with the player waking up after being dumped in an alley. They were inside a lockdown imposed by Marava, a military force trying to contain the city after the emergence of superpowered people, and needed to make their way to safety.
I built and scripted environments for missions and development milestones, alongside work on multiplayer levels. The alley scenario is one I still remember because it gave the space a specific purpose: getting the player from a vulnerable starting point through a city under military containment.
Designing for Different Powers
Movement was a major part of the character-building options. Enhanced jumping, a cheaper movement ability, could get players onto rooftops above impassable streets. Wind powers allowed short periods of flight, while teleportation could carry players from one rooftop to another. The ruined city provided opportunities for different powers to offer different ways through a space.
I built the entire environment for an Ability Zoo scenario, a space intended to exercise movement and destructive powers. I also worked with ability developers to create environments they could use to test new or evolving powers. My responsibility was building and scripting those levels; the ability developers owned the testing, and I was not the primary tester for the Ability Zoo.