Projects

These group projects proved the most challenging, and most rewarding development experiences I’ve had thus far.

Train to Teasan

The game was created to fit the wishes of a mock client, who requested a game to promote their newest tea. There were 3 main requirements to fulfill:

• Explore different cultures and the way they consume tea
• Reference tea objects and the presentation of tea
• Be accessible to a casual audience

To solve the first requirement, I came up with the concept of being mentored by cultural leaders and entering dream states where they teach you. To keep this engaging, the player collects elements of puzzles while they are taught the history of the specific tea culture, before finally completing the puzzle and returning to the mentor.

The second requirement was achieved through tea being a core pillar of the game. We made sure the tea making methods were accurate and included a tea brewing mini-game at the end, taking place after learning from all the mentors.

For the third requirement, it was key that the gameplay was kept simple and the experience short. I designed 3 small levels to quickly give an intimate feeling of the culture, and evoke the dream-like trance the tea evokes. Also, due to the openness of the levels, a guiding wisp was added for if a player spends too long without collecting another piece of the puzzle.

Something that didn’t end up as finished as we would have liked would be the puzzles connection to the final mini-game. Ideally you would have used items you collected throughout, and the final tea would be a greater representation of the 3 cultures in the game. In hindsight more design meetings would have been allocated to this topic.

Overall I found Train to Teasan to be a success, as we fulfilled all the client’s criteria and made a game we’re proud of.

---

Feywild

Feywild is an isometric puzzle game developed by 6 other devs and I, consisting of designers, artists, and a programmer.

Feywild is the major production from the end of my second year at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. There were definitely more challenges working with a bigger team, but a lot was achieved over the 2 months working on this project.

The design pillars of Feywild were small puzzles and synergistic character abilities. With these in mind, the mechanics I designed mainly revolved around enabling movement, so the characters could help each other through the puzzles. Things like strategically placing a moveable block so another character can ride it, or being in the right position to open a gate at the right time. These abilities combined with the limited space caused level innovation, which helped make the levels unique and interesting.

One of the big aspects that needed serious thought was the UI. For our puzzle game, a simple UI that didn’t get in the way but still gave valuable feedback best suited our desired experience, so I created menu and UI wireframes for testing. Using gestalt principles, and weighing the pros and cons of each layout, we decided on keeping the character info to the left with level info to the right. This kept the visual weight of each side even, whilst using the free space around the level.

Something that became apparent quickly in this project due to the team size, was that it’s extra important for everybody to be on the same page. Work would slow down when discussions became infrequent, so I always made sure to cue in my fellow designers on my work and found feedback/brainstorm sessions very productive.

In the end, this project was a great learning experience, and a success in regard to what we set out to create.

---