Hillbilly Hunting
What is it?
Who was involved?
Me
Level Designer
Systems Designer
Programmer
Asset Locator
Voice Actor
Narrative Director
​
​​
Hillbilly Hunting is a nonsensical hunting game where a blue-collared middle aged man hunts progressively aggressive animals. Dale must defeat the gods of the forest in order to leave and to do that he must mow down animals in order to sell them and upgrade his weapons. A remake of an older project with the same concept.
Can I play it?
You can!
Engine?
Unreal Engine 5.5
3 Pillars of Level Design
Keep Surprising Them
To prevent the simple gameplay from becoming repetitive, the game introduces escalating absurd interactions all while grounding them within a threatening forest setting paired with serious boss encounters.
Always Give Them Something
to Shoot
Wacky interactions alone can't keep the player engaged. The world incentivizes constant hunting by populating the forest with animals that reward players with currency used to upgrade their weapons.
Preemptively Tell Them
Where to Go
To avoid confusion, future paths are shown before they become accessible. By revealing locked routes early, players know where to go before encountering each boss.
Old vs. New
HillBilly Hunting was one of my first real level design projects, and I had a very ambitious vision in my head. I was going to create the best level anyone had ever seen, but of course hadn't developed the skills yet and it did not turn out great.
The old map for Hillbilly Hunting vs the new ones.
Hillbilly Hunting wasn't just a chance to show off my better level comprehension, but my improvements in Unreal Blueprints also. The animal, gun, and systems are very modular, so if I ever wanted to add more things it would be easy to do so.
I was given a chance to go back and remake it with the skills I have learned over the couple of years. I made actual progression where the enemies get more intense but the player scales with them to create a balanced difficulty curve. The shrines are placed so that the player can see them at the beginning so they know where their goals are. There are 5 bosses, each with a unique ability to keep the game engaging.
