WeKnewables

Award-Winning Tower Defense about building sustainable power structures and buildings.

THE LISTENERS

3D Exploration Adventure game about listening to and adapting to the needs of our world and each other.

Role:
Designer

• Coordinated with a team of 8 developers across different regions over nine days.

• Conveyed the theme of renewable resources through gameplay by reversing tower defense mechanics to satisfying people and demonstrating the negative long-term effects of pollution.

• Designed a User Interface that empowered users to efficiently place power structures and buildings and feel rewarded for it.

• Balanced the theme and gameplay by providing options that positively and negatively affected the player’s progress in the short and long term, requiring them to make meaningful decisions.

• Delivered the project within scope.

Role:
Designer

• Outlined and coded a dialogue system that requires players to get information from characters to achieve the game’s goal.

• Using Unity Engine, I edited the level to facilitate exploration to encourage players to explore the world in a nonlinear fashion.

• Added systems and packages to streamline development and increase customization options.

Role:
System Designer

• Designed and rapidly prototyped the build in Unity - coded the light mixing mechanics using C#.

• Oversaw and held the vision of the game to keep the game focus consistent.

• Co-wrote the design document for clarity among the team to set a clear roadmap.

• Cooperated with programmers to elaborate needed tools and features in the custom engine. Discussed creative decisions with team.

• Co-designed and built levels to demonstrate the mechanics to teammates.

About:

A First-Person puzzle game in which players mix different colored lights together. Depending on the combined color, the lights will affect objects in different ways:

• Magenta slows down objects.

• Cyan speeds up movement

• Yellow reverses gravity.

The prototype shown here was made in Unity.

About: A two-player stealth action game created in Unity Engine. I developed the game from concept to paper prototype to final portfolio project. Players take on the role of two gnome agents, Rojo and Aoi, to recover a crystal stolen by malicious robots.

Gameplay Design:

The game’s goal was to appeal to the engagement types of Humor catharsis and Fellowship.

Humor relies on comical feedback through sound effects and exaggerated physics; Physical comedy mechanics such as opening doors in front of enemies and dropping blocks on them contributes to the comedic experience.

I developed Fellowship by having players rely on each other’s unique abilities and propping on top of one another. This allows for stronger variations of their abilities. As a result, players collaborated to overcome obstacles.

I designed unique skillsets for Rojo and Aoi to keep the stealth focus. Rojo, the red gnome, acts as a diversion to enemies and direct offense. Meanwhile Aoi, in blue, avoids conflict by firing shots to distract enemies and turn invisible.

Enemy AI uses a custom-coded state system. When patrolling, they follow preset paths; if players act in ways that create sound or get in their cone of vision, they get suspicious and pursue; when players stay in enemies’ cone of vision for too long, they turn hostile and get them into their shooting cone to fire bullets.

Narrative System Design:

• Wrote a fully realized world with a relevant history, environments, characters and item economy that players and Game Masters(GMs) can directly interact with. 

• Designed a suspicion and security system that encourages playing stealthily to avoid being caught by enemies. 

System Design:

• Designed a system for mission-critical NPCs which contain variable that can make exploiting them easier or harder depending on their attitude and awareness towards the player. This further encourages them to act stealthily or earn the NPCs' trust.

• Designed a skill system independent of RPG classes, allowing for flexible growth and a myriad of approaches to completing missions.

• Added mechanics that encourage in-character roleplaying.

About:
A Pen & Paper Roleplaying game based on performing espionage in a world of floating continents. Aerogues contains a classless system that focuses on utilizing spy skills, making NPC connections and fulfilling faction missions. The game encourages multiple playstyles including pure stealth, diplomacy and violence. Unique NPCs are a core part of the experience and have variables for awareness and attitudes for players to exploit, adding to the super spy feel. All images here are for academic and demonstration purposes only. All images are property of their respective owners. 

About:

Enterprise tasks you with managing the workers of a toy factory. Your boss commands you through email to push the workers in case any of them get tired and not, under any circumstance, provide help or relief.

You have the choice of providing them with the help they need to stay productive or shouting at them to stay in line. Your choices determine the kinds of emails you get from the boss and workers and the eventual ending. This was developed based on iThrive’s theme of “Kindness.”

Roles:
Designer

• Designed the original concept and held the vision to adhere to the core “Kindness” theme.

• Wrote the design document and set a clear roadmap with the producer and team.

System Designer

• Conveyed moral choices as tangible, diegetic actions the players could use to affect the outcome.

• Conveyed the game’s reaction to the player’s actions through email messages and endings.

About: I took the original Pinball Revenge game I created and focused building on the feel of controlling a powerful pinball. I carefully improved on the ball’s physics to have a reasonable acceleration that built up to a fast-feeling maximum speed. I programmed a camera to follow the player with a slight delay in different directions to make it feel as if it’s trying to catch up with the speeding ball.

UX & Game Feel: 

• Added an animated, reactive HUD with sound effects to fit the theme of pinball.

• Implemented a combo system that mutliplies point values and displays them for greater satisfaction.

• Drew wireframes, increased fidelity, then exported the assets to Unity’s Canvas system and animated them with its Animator.

• Managed performance using the built-in profiler.

UX & Feel:

Using Unity’s Canvas and Animation system, I crafted a menu for a theoretical, nonexistent tree-themed game. The menu moves seamlessly from submenu to submenu by translating the camera among a smooth curve.

Leaf and flower-themed buttons were made using Microsoft PowerPoint. 

The leaves are clicked to move between submenus, small flowers in bloom toggle options on and off and larger flowers transition to other scenes or game states.

All of this results in the feeling of playing with leaves and climbing from branch to branch.  

About: An interactive main menu and pause menu for a theoretical tree-themed game created in Unity Engine. Uses animations and camera movement to create a feeling of moving through a tree and interacting with its leaves and flowers. The pause menu features similar reactive animations for the menu elements. Available for PC and mobile.

Roles:
System Designer

• Collaborated with other designers and programmers to overhaul the game’s spell system to add greater diversity and accessibility.

• Drew diagrams laying out spells to visually convey their functionality to the team.

• Coordinated with teammates to tweak gameplay balance and controls in-engnine by editing .json scripts.

UX Designer

• Helped the Creative Director and UI Designer iterate on a new UI. Researched other MOBAs and sports games to decide on methods to better convey information to players.

• Encourages them to cast spells based on playtest feedback.

• Rapidly iterated on tutorials and accessible instructions to quickly familiarize players.

About:

Two-player sports game with MOBA elements (i.e. League of Legends or DOTA 2). Players assign each athlete a spell to support teammates or hinder opponents. The goal is to capture the ball and kick it towards the opponent’s tower. Players score points when the tower’s health is empty.
I was brought on to overhaul the game’s design and user interface. We combined mechanics to appeal to fans of both sports games and MOBA games. 

Roles: 

Level Designer - Coordinated with Lead Designer to discuss how players moved through each level, obstacle placement and where abilities would be used. Decided where peaks and valleys in engagement and intensity lay throughout. Arranged level geometry in Zero Engine before porting the coordinates into the custom engine.

Designer - Designed concepts for the particle effects of the player's abilities in Zero Engine, adding to game feel sensation. Coordinated with teammates to bring them into the custom engine. Managed playtests and relayed feedback to dev team to integrate improvements.

Mechanics: 

I designed the columns to easily help players predict where exactly they would move. Being able to predict this helps create larger chains. Rewarding more points within the moving columns helped add a greater sense of risk & reward.

The skulls were made to add greater risk and further make players predict where they could create large chains.

The mission system was added to create more short-term goals and award players with big points and more satisfying feedback between levels. These also gave players meaningful choices on where to prioritize working on the board.

About: My sophomore solo project, GAT250 Gems is a match-3 puzzle game in which players click on gems to create like-colored chains to score big points while predicting where some may move.

About: Constructed in Unity Engine, Pinball Revenge was made to express the sensation engagement type by providing intense sensory feedback. One plays as a pinball that must crash into multiple bumpers at high speed to open up the flippers at the end of the level to exit.

Mechanics: 

I designed game with simple mechanics to focus on delivering engaging visual and audio effects.

Each level has unique hooks that take pacing, intensity and engagement curves into account to deliver an experience of speed and power. These help expand on the simplistic gameplay and add a sense of satisfaction by overcoming challenges and progressing. 

The addition of a combo system helps drive players to play efficiently for higher scores. Placing bonus coins in different areas of the levels have helped add a sense of Discovery and acquirement.

About: Pitch prototype demonstrating demolition mechanics involving multiple controllable vehicles with unique mechanics and physics.

• The Bulldozer rams into buildings with its plow at a high speed. The Puncher launches a ball directly in front of it which retracts back into the vehicle.

• The Wrecking Ball allows you to control the crane with the ball horizontally and vertically, clockwise and counter-clockwise.

• I designed each vehicle to have different strengths when it comes to destroying buildings. The Wrecking Ball has the highest reach; the Missile Launcher fires across long distances; the Puncher can hit buildings at lower points than others; and the Bulldozer is faster and can run up slopes.

System Designer:

About: A 2D flying platformer created in DigiPen’s proprietary Zero Engine. Players jump and fly through 20 levels to collect orbs, halos and feathers. The mechanics enable seamless transition from platforming to flight.

Roles:

Designer

• Assisted with designing and tweaking mechanics to provide a smooth flying experience.

• Built a fly through ring mechanic to reward and guide players through the level.

• Recorded and managed playtests for feedback and reiteration.

• Enhanced game feel by adding effects based on

Level Designer

• Designed and assembled level layouts on a screen-by-screen basis to manage pacing and intensity curves.

• Organized level order for a reasonable difficulty curve.

• Tested and iterated on them for polish.

• Designed the unique levels as tricky mazes,