Test Drive: Unlimited Solar Crown
TDUSC is a lifestyle and social experience that redefines what an open-world racing game can be. Explore a fully recreated Hong Kong Island. Take to the road behind the wheel of exceptional cars and live the ultimate life of luxury. Through your avatar, you can meet other players in one of the many social hubs or behind the wheel during one of the many races that you can found on hong kong island. If motor racing isn't your thing, you can also opt to cruise with your friend around the island. For two years, I was part of the Test Drive level design team. During this time, I worked on a different part of the game that you can find below.
I joined the team of KT Racing at the end of 2022 as a Level Designer to work on the new opus of the franchise Test Drive: Unlimited. When I arrived the project was already well advanced, but I still had the chance to work on redesigns of certain areas and races of the game. I also had the chance to work on the live content service of the game, which I cannot talk about at the moment.
Game: Test Drive
Engine: KT Engine
Roles: Level Design - Scripting - World Building
Release date: September 12, 2024
Trailer
My work on Hong Kong Island
TDUSC is a game that take place in a fully recreated Hong Kong Island. My job as a level designer was to build the island's road system and create a blockout of the game's environment. While our goal was to recreate Hong Kong's island faithfully, we took some liberties to make the game map more navigable and bring the different gameplay elements together more efficiently. We put in a lot of effort to give an identity to the different regions of the map, resulting in a unique driving experience and challenges as the player progresses.
As I arrived on the project at a time when the map was already largely validated, my job was mainly to rework some regions to improve the work that had already been provided. It was a very interesting exercise that allowed me to learn step by step the different tools of the Kylotonn engine.
Stanley: An Urban Region
Stanley is one of the first regions I was able to work on. Located in the south of the island, it contrasts enormously with the surrounding regions being one of the few urban areas of the south of the map. Stanley’s interest is to be able to offer an urban environment in total contrast with the north of Hong Kong. Here, there is only one major traffic axis that crosses the city and is connected by many secondary axes that lead into the city. Verticality is more created by terrain relief than by road axes due to the area's greater relief than the north of the island.
If some aspect of the area pushes the player to explore, it is mainly through races that this region shines. Through winding roads between buildings or by the sea, Stanley offers a beautiful playground to set up different race tracks.

Screenshots of the area of Stanley on the map in-game.
Screenshots of Stanley In-Game.
North Taitam: A jungle area
Taitam is certainly the least urban area of the whole map of the game and also the one that pushes the player more to explore with off-road vehicles. This is the second area I worked on after Stanley, part of my job was to improve the different off-road paths of the map for the different vehicles. As you can see on the game map screen, the vast majority of these paths do not appear on the map until the player has discovered them which allowed us to hide many secrets in the valleys of this region.
Unlike Stanley, Taitam is a region that offers little racing, the experience here being rather access on exploration and discovery of point of interreset. This region also has the particularity of offering gravel roads and not many tarmac roads. These roads are really only passable with addapted vehicles.

Screenshots of the are of Taitam on the map in-game.
Screenshots of Taitam In-Game.
Race Design: Urban Rivalry
In addition to working on the main map of the game, I also had the opportunity to propose or rework race designs present on HKI. As an example of the work I was able to do, you can find a video of Urban Rivalry, a race of beginning of game that is near the HUB of the Sharps in the north of the island. Urban Rivalry is a race in domination, where each pass of checkpoint makes the player gain points in function of his position in the race. To win you don’t have to be first by passing the finish line, but be the one who got the most points.
For this race I stayed on a rather simple but effective layout. Urban Rivalry begins with a technical city area, where the player goes through several turns. It then arrives on a fast track axis in ascent which sets the following sequence, a descent with several big turns or the player must master his speed. The end of this descent brings the player into a new technical zone in town where players are again the opportunity to overtake.

View of the race in-game