
Role: Junior Level Designer
Studio: Techland
Engine: C-Engine
Tools: Lucidchart, Jira, Perforce
Released: 18.09.2025
Dying Light: The Beast
My work
Open World Activity
Dark Zones
I was a part of the team working on Dark Zones - Open World Activity that is meant as high risk - high reward loot source for the player.
I've worked mainly on:
-
Iterating stealth paths to build up tension
-
Difficulty and combat balancing
-
Golden path readability
I've also maintained technical side of activities like:
-
Gameplay modifiers zones
-
Navigation mesh
-
Optimization
-
UI icons implementation
-
Updating technical documentation
I've worked closely with Level Art department to ensure that gameplay and art go hand in hand to create great experience.
Finding the activity

Inside of the Dark Zone

Example playtrough:
Someone was trying to teach zombies some math

Open World Activity
Hidden Stashes
Hidden Stashes are activities that reward player for the exploration with loot, cool storytelling or even an easter egg or pop culture reference. Sometimes gated behind enviromental puzzle, combat or difficult to reach places that reward parkour skills.
Creation process consisted of:
-
Prototyping on test maps or using the existing enviroment on the map.
-
Coming up with narrative pitch, combat and puzzle beats
-
Implementing and scripting these activities in engine
-
Doing some environmental storytelling as well
We worked closely with narration on this to make stories worth remembering. It was very rewarding and creative task that let our imagination run wild.
Here are some examples of my ideas that ended up in final game:
Loved One:
Playtrough:
In one of the apartments player finds a note that is a noise complain about the neighbours dog barking constantly. It's one of a two notes that we can find in this building - that way we can initiate this mini-quest from multiple interiors. When we get to the apartment next door - we find a safe with a letter nearby written by a lady declaring adoration for a loved one in which she mentions a painting to encourage a player to take interest with the ones inside the apartment. I placed some paintings like a painting of a married couple, kids paintings that player can hit to make them fall down. There's nothing behind the pictures in this room but If he goes further down the corridor he finds a locked door that he can see trough and behind them on the wall - one more painting of a dog. There's a window in the line of sight to indicate to player the possibility that he can get there by parkouring on the rooftops of outside buildings. To make this interior easier to find from outside - I've placed a bag stuck to the window frame that sways in the wind. When the player knocks down the painting - he finds the code to the safe. To make the return to safe more pleasant to the player - I've made a shortcut trough the bathroom.
Hut in the woods:
Playtrough:
If the player makes a little detour to the marshes, they can see a red object and some humans in the distance. I've placed some hiding spots on the way there to make it easier to observe the situation and plan. Getting closer, we can see a little stone hut and some bandits roaming outside. I've implemented scripted behaviours to make this situation look believable, so some of them are ransacking the hut, some are patrolling, and others are going through the vegetable plots that are growing near the house. After fighting them, he finds a note that one of the bandits dropped about the plan to rob this isolated place in the woods because the lady here was growing vegetables. Inside, we reward the player with some loot. On the bed, there's a body of the lady who lived here.
Players really appreciated Hidden Stashes and I couldn't be more happy with their reactions:




One of players even added some fitting soundtrack:
Encounter design
During the production I've gained experience with designing combat beats. I've worked on enemies setups in some of the OWA activities and two side-quests. Starting with paper design and then implementation in engine.
I've also worked on general pass on combat helper placement on the map to make them useful and believable within the world.
Electric box and oil puddle combat helpers

So close...

Bug fixing and polish
At the end of the production I worked on polishing the locations of activities that I've owned - playing and fixing and finding ways to break things. It was a lot of Jira tickets containing mostly issues with:
-
Assets clipping
-
Z-fighting
-
Proper presets and spawners configu
-
Navmesh
-
Scripts validation
Recommendation
"I had the distinct pleasure of managing Tomek while he was a Junior Level Designer on my team for Dying Light: The Beast. He was responsible for creating open-world activities, including the Dark Zones and Hidden Stashes.
Tomek possesses a rare and valuable combination of skills. He has an innate understanding of player motivation and a keen eye for what makes gameplay enjoyable, resulting in his locations receiving numerous positive comments from our community. At the same time, his background as a producer gives him a structured and methodical approach. He is exceptionally organized, follows processes diligently, and communicates with other teams with clarity and efficiency.
His level of independence and proactive problem-solving was consistently above and beyond the expectations for his role. I was always confident that any task assigned to Tomek would be completed to a high standard. I wholeheartedly recommend him for any future endeavors."
Cezary Nojszewski, Lead Open World Designer, Techland