Game Design Portfolio
Crash Team Rumble
Toys For Bob, Activision - Game Design Intern
My Learnings:
How to collaborate in a specialized role on a large team and launch a big, live-service, competitive multiplayer game for XBOX and PlayStation platforms.
How to write Server SQL queries and visualize data to balance upcoming game modes, including Party Mode.
How to design levels with intention, follow established design principles, and create a unique level to add to the existing map roster.
How to research and use data to find issues in balance, connect that data to flaws in level design, and implement solutions to resolve the imbalance.
How to use Unreal Engine networking Blueprints to implement gameplay abilities and rewards.
Used Perforce and Jira for maintaining production.
- AAA Team Collaboration
Frequent text and video communication to clarify issues, take notes, provide design feedback, and participate in regular playtesting.
Discuss data, obstacles, solutions, and technical implementations to achieve design goals with heroes, power-ups, levels, and game modes, like Party Mode.
Participate in progress meetings, to receive and provide feedback to eachothers' work.
Crash Team Rumble
3rd-person, platformer, MOBA
Team up with a diverse cast of Crash Bandicoot characters and compete against the enemy team to deposit enough collectibles to win the match.
Browse on the PlayStation Store
2. Data Querying, Visualization, and System Balance
Deliberated with designers on balance-related data to track for new game modes, like Party Mode.
Wrote Server SQL queries and developed visualization charts and graphs using proprietary tools.
Determined how to balance the gameplay systems to achieve our intended gameplay and balance.
Designed 3 whitebox levels using Unreal Engine 4 for future live service releases.
Analyzed existing level roster to define interesting features and wrote level design documents for level-unique mechanics.
Iterated on designs from coworker feedback.
Decorated whiteboxes to inspire environmental art.
4. Issues Identification, Analyses, and Resolutions
Identified level balance issues using correlating data that supported the causes for the problems.
Analyzed the problematic level and connected the data to the level design features causing the balance issues.
Proposed and implemented level design solutions to resolve the level balance issues.
5. Unreal Engine 4 Blueprints (BP)
Created unique networking BP from to globally track player and appropriately award players a special gameplay badge.
Modified and iterated future gameplay-mechanics BPs to match intended gameplay.
Debugged networking BPs in Party Mode to fix and expand data pipes for back-end server tracking.
Helix Stack Jump
Kooapps - Associate Game Designer
Helix Stack Jump
Hypercasual Mobile Game
Use the ball to break through the stacked rings to complete the level
Satisfying and relaxing gameplay during downtown
My Objectives:
Research skin collection interest
Improve Live Ops Participation
Improve Daily Challenge Participation
Research:
Investigated competitors' features
Performed frequent user testing
Used contemporary data analysis tools to analyze player engagement
Performed build tests for large-scale player engagement data and changes to Key-Performance Indicators (KPI)
Designing the Game:
Wrote 22 design documents describing:
Skin Customization Systems
Gameplay Live Ops Mechanics
Quality of Life UX
Character and Story Narrative
Back-End Requirements
Collecting Customizable Skins
Overhauled skin shop UI
Unique end-level skin shop
Changing the default ball to a character
Earning skins from completing normal games
Friendly character dialogue encouragement at the end of a level
Daily Challenge and Live Ops Participation
Utilized contemporary data analysis tools to find player participation in LiveOps
Used contemporary UX tools to wireframe new menus that improved LiveOps participation
Tested unique live event gameplay to find which mechanics resonated with my audience the most and improve my KPI
In Conclusion:
Provided valuable data for customizable skin collection
Increased Daily Challenge and Live Ops participation
Created 5 successful monthly live events
Helix Stack Jump KPI Performance
Recorded on Google Play Store Version, Feb. 2022 - Aug. 2022Since I started designing this project:
Live Event Games Complete Occurences Per User (OPU) increased by almost 3-fold
Live Event RV Ads OPU increased by over 15-fold
Daily Challenge Games Complete OPU increased by almost 4-fold
Daily Challenge RV Ads OPU increased by over 14-fold
Advertisement Revenue Per Daily Active User Increased
Freight Hopper
Husky Game Studio - Lead Game Designer
Freight Hopper
Physics-based, fast-paced, first-person platformer game.
A short 10-level game to relax or compete for better times.
Research:
Researched various parkour games like Clustertruck and Mirror's Edge for inspiration and successful parkour design practices
Determined these games were the most fun when the mechanics and levels support the player to constantly move, make decisions, and choose their own path to reach the goal
Designing the Gameplay:
Drafted Freight Hopper's Game Design Document along with my engineering and artistic peers
Specified the target gameplay: Empower the player with movement tools to let them control their gameplay pace
Detailed what these tools were and other game aspects like level design, art, and user interface
Defined Physics-based movement that led to satisfying and expressive gameplay
Such as ground-pounding which defines the high-speed parkour action
In the gameplay trailer, the player utilizes ground pounds to boost off the front of trains to increase speed
Built levels that presented the player with unique challenges and high replayability
Directed art and UI to minimize distraction from gameplay
Environments are low-poly and heavily rely on color to convey themselves to the player
UI is utilitarian to only display the most valuable information
Designing the Levels:
My goal per level was to provide unique scenarios and allow for highly expressive gameplay.
Levels that allow the player to plan their own path, experiment, and spontaneously parkour; cut the boring waiting.
Used Lucid.app to create level concepts, and built them in Unity.
Focussed on easing the player into game mechanics so the player is guaranteed to learn how to use crucial gameplay mechanics
Freight Hopper KPI Performance on Steam
Recorded July 29th - September 3rd, 20229,000 Purchased Copies
2,737 Unique Players
139 Average Daily Active Users (last seven days)
218 Wishlists
2,724 Total First-Time Downloads
40-Minute Average Playtime
431,707 Impressions
53,202 Visits
12.32% Impressions->Visits, Click-through Rate
34 Reviews, 97% Positive
Overall, I am ecstatic that people enjoy Freight Hopper. It was a fantastic pleasure to work with great classmates and produce something that others found valuable. If Freight Hopper sees more growth as the metrics are depicting, I will continue to work on additional gameplay for the game.
Freight Hopper has a Speedrun.com page with a world record run listed at 2 minutes, 32 seconds, 967 milliseconds. Check out the speed run here!
In May 2023, Husky Game Studio updated Freight Hopper to 2.0.0! Adding: tighter controls, bonus content in levels, and Steam networking integration for cooperative multiplayer and leaderboards.