TYLER MAITLAND - Portfolio
Hi, my name is Tyler Maitland. With over 13 years of experience in the games industry, I’ve worn many hats—from animator to game designer to level designer. What began as a personal passion project, Seafrog, evolved into a full-time endeavor after securing a publisher, ultimately leading to the incredible milestone of shipping my own game. Now, with that lifelong dream realized, I’m excited to bring both creative vision and hands-on production experience to new projects and collaborations.
Thirteen years ago animation brought me into game development and with over 15 years of professional experience animating it’s still one of my favorite aspects of making a game.
Seafrog is a 2.5D action-puzzle-platformer mixed with movement that was inspired by skateboarding. It was primarily built by myself and a colleague with help from contractors along the way. My responsibilities were directing, game design, art, animation, rigging, modeling, shaders, and level design.
While my primary expertise is in animation, developing Seafrog ignited a deep passion for level design. I thoroughly enjoy the full design cycle—from early sketches and prototyping, through playtesting and iteration, to the thrill of watching players experience the final product.
Check out what reviewers said about the level designs of Seafrog below:
“…inventive gameplay, charming visual style, and brilliant level design…”
“The most brilliant part of the game is its level design.”
Himekawa Yoshino - Steam Review
“...the core gameplay places high demands on level design. Fortunately, the developer absolutely nailed it…”
Torch_of_Distress - Steam Review
Idea Generation & Sketching
I begin by identifying the objective of the space—such as introducing a new gameplay mechanic, highlighting a piece of environmental storytelling, giving a new upgrade, etc.
In this case I wanted to introduce a new mechanic. A fan that would exert directional force on the player, but only if they had the bubble status effect applied.
FINAL GAMEPLAY
The second room introduces similar gameplay but with more challenges and risks.
Level Prototyping Examples
After pitching the concept and making sure the new mechanic had enough gameplay value, I then moved into a deeper look at how to introduce the mechanic to the player.
FINAL GAMEPLAY
I then begin to evolve or twist the new mechanic as the player becomes more comfortable. This can be done in any number of ways. In this case I increased the difficulty but also combined a previously introduced mechanic.
FINAL GAMEPLAY
With a strong background in 3D animation I often prototype mock-ups of game mechanics or level designs to show exactly how something could function in Maya. I find this to be a quick and effective way to communicate a mechanic as well as control pacing before touching any code.
In this example I came up with a battle system for the game, Teeny Titans & it’s sequel Teen Titans Go Figure! The bar fills showing how much resource the player has and what abilities they can afford versus their opponent.
The upside was the player didn’t need to be able to read numbers to compare resources against ability costs which fit well with the younger demographic the game was targeted for.
Another feature I wanted to showcase in this mock-up was the vertical format of the game. I knew mobile games did better if users didn’t have to rotate their devices to play. I developed this split screen system that allowed two cameras to merge into one, keeping the big action moments of attacking full screen but also allowing the player to see large animated figures facing each other as they idled.
MOCK-UP
Made in Maya + After Effects
FINAL
Made in Unity
MOCK-UP
Made in Maya + After Effects
FINAL
Made in Unity
With the same game series I also had the opportunity to pitch the idea of making Jump City in full 3D and triggering time based events.
The player could swipe directions to auto run the character through the streets learning alternate paths and shortcuts in order to reach a sale before it expires.
THICK AS THIEVES
A pitch I had developed for Adult Swim. A multiplayer couch co-op game where a group of thieves ransack a city. Collect loot, work together to score big, but watch out for the cops… and each other.
BOMBERMAN-LIKE STUDY
In this study I wanted to mash two of my favorite competitive games together. The transformative level designs of Powerstone 2 and the core gameplay of Bomberman!
FAR FROM HOME
Far From Home was a 3D platformer and side project to learn #C. A robot crash lands on a foreign planet and must recollect scattered missing part. Re-collecting recipes of parts would rebuild his body and thus develop new abilities for traversal.
And companies I’ve worked with:
