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Game Design
Wonderbox
Wonderbox has been my first project built for a client. Design meetings and updates with Sensorium Theatre's design and management team was a great way to learn how to use someone else's vision and connect it to both technical reality and my own ideas in a way that satisfies everyone involved.
The largest input from Sensorium was coordinating the development for the theatrical performance, as well as designing a comfortable and enjoyable experience for neurodivergent youth.
The design process included four Zoom meetings over 2022. In these, we developed a mood board, design document and a technical demonstration to the design director. The development is split into an initial build, based on the meetings, which will go through a playtest process tested in several schools in Western Australia.
Duped
Duped was my first major collaboration to create a finished product with fellow artists. I was the programmer and main game designer. Key accomplishments;
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Programming game flow, including dialogue breaks, exit chambers and narrative progression throughout the game
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Designing levels and puzzles with input from the rest of the team and playtesters
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Reworking central mechanics according to playtest feedback
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Learning to use Unreal's audio system to add music and dialogue
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Working on writing voicelines and the narrative at collaborative meetings with the rest of the team
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Working with the artist to translate Blender environments and rigged character models successfully into Unreal
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Experiencing crunch time for the first time - I love it and hate it
Game Design Docs
Some more design docs not being developed. Written for fun/inspiration. Writing this, I discovered that a lot are reworks of actual games. It seems to be something I do for fun.
Survival Multiplayer Design Doc
I always liked cooperative survival, so I wanted to take it to the next level. This game is all about players working together to create a civilization, taking on professions and roles in order to create a fully functional society with no NPCs. This presented some obvious challenges.
Challenges:
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Make the game enjoyable even if a player's life is less than glamorous, i.e. a farmer
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Make the survival aspect difficult enough so there's a challenge and a drive to work together, but easy enough so people do cooperate and socialize instead of just surviving.
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Make players want to cooperate as well, so there isn't just anarchy.
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Solutions:
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Give enough for players to do. Make routine tasks have a little bit of difficulty, and make them more than press E to harvest
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Take notes from other survival games. Inspirations include: Don't Starve Together, the Long Dark
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Make it rewarding to work together, and experiment with how to make it feel personal. For instance, proximity voice chat and reputation system within clans.
Sid Meier's Civilization 7 Concept
I've played these games since Civ 4. I always liked them, and wanted to think of how I would design a sequel. One thing I always found lacking was the political aspects of it - governments are really just stat modifiers. Also, I'm really feeling the absence of complex trade route income tax mechanics. (Don't read the whole thing - it's 50 pages long)
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Challenges:
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Make all the dozens of different mechanics not feel overwhelming. The previous games already feel complicated and I'm adding layers of mechanics.
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Make the world more interesting! I would love to see more variance in the world.
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More politics! Make appeasing your citizens important, or rebellions will begin!
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Solutions:
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Tone a lot of it down. Make it in the background and not necessary to play the game unless the player wants to mess with it.
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So many ideas! Height variance, natural disasters, etc. etc. etc.
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Stellaris is a great example of how to make a government feel layered without too much junk (cough cough factions system).