Since I was a kid I was always inspired by movies and video games and came up with ideas of my own. I always wondered how certain game mechanics were made and why I would get sucked into a good game. My favorite part of game design are the small iterations that are made as the idea gets explored by concepts, theory crafting, and prototyping. It is really rewarding watching the game improve over the course of several iterations. This page is a portfolio of game design ideas that I have created and documented.
Game Design Documentation
While I was game designer at House Pixel Games, I created several game ideas to explore for our next game. I recorded these ideas into a game design document that I shared with the team. I received feedback / concepts and continued to update the documentation while we iterated on ideas to make sure that the document had the most up to date information. Disclaimer: These documents are of explorations and a few of them might have sections that are incomplete or contain halfway explored ideas. These documents provide insight into how I document my ideas as well as show off some original game design ideas I've come up with.
Project Leviathan
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Project Leviathan is a unique survival city building game where you get to take command of The Leviathan - a giant moving island big enough for a city. Decide how you want to use your limited resources as you navigate your city through a lonely desolate world filled with a seemingly endless ocean of sand. Uncover the past, interact with different societies, build your city, and survive as you collect clues that guide you towards the promised land. Do you have what it takes to bring your commonwealth salvation? Or will your island sink into the unforgiving sand sea?
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Project Adventure
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Project Adventure is a single player action adventure game that follows the adventures of Slim and their partner Jim. Slim and Jim are artifact hunters, which is an eccentric group of conspiracy theorists and adventures who seek out treasures and secrets left behind from an old and forgotten civilization. Project Adventure tells the story of how the two intrepid adventures find themselves in a lost world forgotten by time. These two heroes travel deep into the rabbit hole discovering secrets of the world that not even their conspiracy theorists colleagues could have ever imagined.
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Project Racer
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We explored two different art styles with project racer and I ended up making different design documents for each idea. Below is the hook for each version we explored.
Project Racer is is the ultimate high speed and high stake racing game where both speed and precision are required to take the first place ribbon. Compete in powerful 1980s inspired cyberpunk cars souped up with tethers, thrusters, sphere tires, teleportation devices, and more! Project Racer is is the ultimate high speed and high stake racing game where both speed and precision are required to take the first place ribbon. Compete in wacky hero and villain super cars souped up with tethers, thrusters, sphere tires, teleportation devices, and more! |
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Space Command
Space Command is a single player 3D top-down turn-based strategy prototype set in space built using Unreal Engine 4.10.0. Players interact with the game’s pieces on top of a hexagonal grid and play against another opponent hot-seat style. Each player can move, rotate, and attack with their ships as long as they have enough action points. The player that destroys their opponent's fleet wins.
In addition to the Unreal Engine project, I created an equipment system where players can upgrade their ships by equipping crew members that add abilities and change the stats of ships. I developed this concept using a paper prototype to start testing and balancing all of the combinations of abilities and stat changes.
In addition to the Unreal Engine project, I created an equipment system where players can upgrade their ships by equipping crew members that add abilities and change the stats of ships. I developed this concept using a paper prototype to start testing and balancing all of the combinations of abilities and stat changes.
Design Goals
- I concepted and created a dynamic turn-based combat system with ships that dealt/received damage depending on their position and orientation because I thought that this would make for a good tactical game mechanic
- I created a paper prototype to test initial ship stats, game interactions, ship movement/rotation, and how damage is dealt. This allowed me to balance the gameplay, plan how game systems will be set up in UE4, and envision what type of UI/UX is needed.
- I created data systems for ship stats in UE4 and input the data from initial paper prototypes. These data systems made creating new ship designs and iterating on existing ships quick and easy
- I created a rapid prototype using Unreal Engine 4 using minimal art to begin testing the game's features and balance early
