Believer Blockout Playtest
This collection showcases early greybox prototypes developed for an internal investor playtest. At this stage, our primary goal was to rapidly explore traversal and combat mechanics within large, open-ended spaces. These environments were intentionally minimal and abstract, allowing us to focus on player flow, encounter pacing, and the collaborative iteration loop between environment art, level design, and combat design.
The blockouts were built with flexibility in mind, enabling quick adjustments in response to gameplay feedback and emerging design needs. While highly experimental and not indicative of final visuals or fidelity, this work represents a foundational step in shaping the overall feel and rhythm of the world.
My role focused on building out these prototype spaces in close partnership with design, ensuring that traversal, sightlines, and encounter staging all supported moment-to-moment gameplay testing.
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I've also included some of the terrain materials I was creating for the project.
Shot of the early greybox scene where the player lands on the planet.
Early greybox prototypes from our investor playtest, built to collaborate closely with level and encounter design. These work-in-progress spaces were used to explore traversal and combat mechanics in an open-world context.
Hand sculpted rock material with exaggerated forms and clean surface breakup for visual readability from a distance.
Warm toned dirt with subtle variation and soft breakup, serves as the foundation layer for natural terrain blending.
Chunkier, more aggressive dirt material built to suggest disturbed earth and high-traffic destruction zones.
Layered silt material designed to read through water.
Heavy, sculpted bark with bold ridges and deep cavities, designed for large scale readability on stylized forest assets.
Elongated, striped bark pattern combining birch structure with a rich redwood inspired palette, built for vertical flow and material contrast.
Hybrid material blending natural sapwood textures with embedded sci-fi tech elements, designed for narrative-rich environments where nature meets advanced technology.
Soft grassy texture with directional flow and hue variation.
Glossy, slick surface designed to catch specular highlights, used to suggest environmental hazards or industrial spills.
Trail material with embedded stones and packed earth. A good starting place to block in gameplay spaces before circling back to stylize the material.