Design and implement 3 level maps
Underwatertale at its core started as a cozy exploration rpg. I got to design 3 levels: Rocky Reef, the intro map, Lily Reef, the small village and hub, and Kelp Forest, a big forest for the player to explore
Rocky Reef
In Rocky Reef, the goal was to have players explore the whole thing without restricting them to a linear path. In order to make sure this happened, I strategically picked 2 quests to place in this map. One had players racing a snail around the map forcing players to see the whole thing. The other was a collection quest that forced players to search the entire map a little more thoroughly to find a moms lost eggs.
Lily Reef
The goal of Lily Reef was to provide a bustling hub for the player to interact with NPCs and get quests. It originally started very big with grandiose circle hubs for residential and industrial areas. Later on, we lowered the importance of Lily Reef and with that I had to redesign a smaller map. I opted for a sort of neighborhood feel with a main street that branches off to smaller streets. It is familiar to the player as a town but keeps a more rugged shape of nature.
Kelp Forest
I wanted the player to get lost in Kelp Forest. It was the main exploration area of the game with a bit of a mysterious element to it. I start with a cyclical target shape. I thought the more opportunities the player has to loop back to where they started, the more confusing it will be. From that layout I created rooms along that path, some of which were cyclical them selves. Play tests showed that the area was easy to get lost in, but it felt intriguing rather than frustrating.
Rocky Reef Sketch
Design and organize art implementation
The art in Underwatertale was partially inspired by Naiad by HiWarp. My job as environmental designer had me designing an efficient way to replicate this in engine. I worked closely with our Tech Artist to first dissected a screenshot of Naiad and determined what category of assets we needed. Opting for mostly 2D sprite assets, I needed a way to create depth.
Wanting to first make sure we cover up the square walls of the map, I decided that we needed a base level "rock" lay that protrudes out of the wall to block these edges. This proved to be effective as well as giving more depth as it allowed the player to partially swim under them.
The ceiling assets is where the extra layers of depth were added. I wanted to have them painted on top of this rock layer at differing heights. Not only did this feed back into the idea of depth but it also allowed artists to simply make a set amount of assets that could then be reused and painted on the roofs.
Ideate upgrade mechanics and quests
In Underwatertale, I designed 4 upgrade mechanics and 5 main quests, 2 of which are shown on the right. The game was originally going to have dynamic movement abilities and possibly some combat. The mechanics were some fun and dual purpose ideas. Sadly with the tight timeline and the scope down of the game, these features got cut.
The soul of the game is its wacky characters. In all puzzle designs, I kept that focus alive.
Create 2 map floor textures
While designing the area layouts, the team had lot of art tasks not enough artists. I was able to step in and use Apple's Procreate to design and create the floors for Rocky Reef and both versions of Lily Reef.
Stepping into the artist role for a little bit taught me not only how to be intentional with art design but more of the technical aspects as well. Keeping our floor texture not too big in order to improve loading times was important.
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Daniel Salameh
Game Developer and Designer. Computer Scientist
2026 Daniel Salameh