Story-based 2D pixel platformer title featuring a girder-wielding knight who launches himself from platform to platform.
Leadership
Conceived the original concept of the game, sketching out the first drafts of game mechanics, character designs, and story. Took on a leadership role as our team grew. Took responsibility for setting short and long term deadlines, structuring team meetings, and delegating tasks using tools such as spreadsheets and Trello to track workflow.
game Design + UX Design
Planned out game mechanics, plot, thematics, and art style as the creative director of this project. Developed mechanics inspired retro platform games, while catering fans of precise movement as well as speed. The main game mechanic involves the protagonist spinning a hefty girder around his body to gain momentum in order to launch himself high into the air and across wide gaps. Collaborated with a team of designers and programmers to bring each concept into fruition, creating and testing multiple prototypes with a group of user testers.
Since this project is a 2D platformer, movement was our team's number one priority. Collaborated with designers and programmers to release several prototypes to a group of 40+ game testers. Created a series of google forms to identify players' general video game experience and platformer specific experience, keeping that into account when asking questions about specific aspects of in-game movement.
Sir Girder is a challenging platformer catered towards experienced players, so feedback from those testers was prioritized. Experienced players can also provide more nuanced feedback and give informed design feedback. Casual gamers' feedback was also taken into consideration to make the game accessible to beginners, but was interpreted with caution. This analysis of feedback informed many decisions regarding movement mechanics and level design.
Envisioned potential level designs that could complement Sir Girder's launching mechanic before committing to the idea. Once we had enough unique ideas, our team decided it was worth developing the concept.
Once a working prototype and the first round of user testing were complete, new movement options were added to increase the flow of gameplay.
A dive move was implemented that allows players to change the angle at which they fall. This gives them a little more aerial mobility to make platforming more lenient, but retain difficulty.
Torpedo buster gives the player the option to cancel a launch and redirect themselves downwards, which not only allows for more depth of movement, but also another option for combat.
Dive move
Torpedo Buster
Level Design
Worked together with another designer to create intuitive levels that used movement mechanics to their full potential, finding creative ways that launching oneself can interact within the game world. Focused on easing players into new scenarios into each level and ramping up difficulty in order to provide a sense of progression while also pacing gameplay to create moments of tension or allow players to pause momentarily. Structured levels as collections of smaller challenge rooms of varying sizes that introduce players to one concept at a time. Designed overall level layouts to be reflective of their environments (e.g. a forest level involves consistently moving upwards jumping from branch to branch to gain new height).
Created low-fidelity prototypes of each individual room on paper and visualized overall level layouts in excel. Put together the final version of each level in GameMaker Studio 2. Collaborated with programmers to polish interactions and remove bugs in each level.
Low-fidelity sketch of a level
Implementing the level in GameMaker Studio 2
Final version of the level
visual Design
Designed an art style inspired by retro Nintendo platformers and cel shading to create a cartoony/anime-esque game world. Applied color theory to create vibrant and consistent environments and made important elements stand out to grab players' attention. Designed characters and enemies and created hundreds of in game animations guided by the 12 principles of animation.
Most recent footage of the game
Reflection
While this project is still in development, it has already taught me so much. Working as a visual designer has help me grow my artistic abilities significantly. I am now very familiar with color theory and animation. I have also gained expertise in UX Design by going through multiple rounds of user testing and having important discussions with my team to change elements of our project for the better. Looking back, the feedback received shaped our game into a project I am proud present. I am looking forward to increasing my skillset and bringing my team's vision to life within the next year.