Game Design

Here are some of my game design charts and graphs. I like visually mapping out ideas as well as writing them down. Here are some of my design philosophies:

Its important to get everyone on the same page
Make designs that strongly tie back to your core pillars
Make sure everyone's voices are heard, we are all making the game we should be passionate about it
Communicate your struggles and progress to receive feedback
Have fun

Visual documentation and design documents to share

Projects

Pieces

Pieces

MJ:HSGF

MJ:HSGF

Jungle Gym

Jungle Gym

Capstone project

Teach kids about their emotions, emotional intelligence and that their actions have consequences.

Worked with the CYC program

- Miro, Godot

3rd year project

Parody of gacha games mixed with idle game.

- Unity, Miro, Confluence

2nd year project

As a safety regulation monkey check if the jungle gym park is safe to open

- Unity, Miro, Jira

Pieces

Pieces, it is a story-rich exploration game on PC featuring 2D isometric gameplay. Since we are taking part in the CYC collaboration, our target audience are kids aged 8 - 12. Pieces is about being a colourless person in a world full of colours. Players interact with NPCs to see how their choices shape them, becoming more colorful with each interaction.

Role: Game Designer, Programmer

Engine: Godot

Genre: Narrative, 2D Puzzle, Educational

Type: Visual Novel, Fill in the grid

Team Size: 5

Why: Capstone project

From Sept 2025 - July 2026

Will be attending level up!

Contributions

Engaging Kids

Problem: How do we engage kids to our game

Considerations: Our game isn't like the big 3 kids games (Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox), Need to take individual aspects to why they are successful

Solution: Add Keepsake pets that kids will want to collect and remember.

Turn sound on

Disconnect With main Character's Emotions

Problem: Play testers had an issue with the way we were presenting the character's emotion

Considerations: Needed to keep the colour changing, its a big part of what makes the game unique. Have a way to show more emotions.

Solution: Make the character's star show individual colour

Turn sound on

Colour Wheel
Iterations

Colour Wheel

Then I made a design we could use with multiple emotions

First Colour wheel used In-game

Another simplification

Colour Wheel with Watercolour aesthetic

Then I narrowed the emotions down

Colour Wheel

Then I made a design we could use with multiple emotions

1/3

Here is an idea I had for a colour blind mode.

Finally I changed them to be more of a complementary colours making it easier to remember

Lessons Learned:

Getting feedback from play testers and teammates is such an invaluable asset.
So many things I had overlooked or thought people would differentiate
Players are learning everything for the first time and having a small thing like different shades of blue is something that could go unnoticed.

My starting colours and emotions. I wanted more but I didn't want to over scope so early on

Then I made another one with different colours. They didn't fit our colour aesthetic and calm and sad were too similar. The diagram is for a grid rule we may not use

Mayor JUbilee: Heavenly Star Girls Festival

MJ:HSGF is a story-based gacha simulator where the player takes the role of Jubilee, the meek and gullible mayor of a small town called Summersville. The mayor is tasked with the upkeep and repair of the town, that is until Heavenly StarGirls Corp. appears suddenly one day, advertising their brand new gacha game, Heavenly StarGirls Festival. Mayor Jubilee must now decide... is the town worth the trouble? Or is the call of the beautiful, yet elusive Star Girls too powerful?

Role: Game Designer, 3D modeling, UI Assets

Engine: Unity

Genre: Idle, Gacha

Team Size: 5

Why: 3rd year game design project

From Sept 2024 - April 2025

Contributions

Presentation / Pitch

I needed a presentation so I could pitch it to my class and the professor. As well as having a design challenge regarding a world issue. I choose wealth inequality.

Feedback and Playtesting

I wanted standard idle and gacha games.
Playtesting taught there was no consequences to ignoring the town.
Funding the town was a good investment
I thought they would feel bad automatically for not funding the town.
They would also hoard their money then buy all the figures.

I needed risk and engagement for the town
Can't just be a money printing machine
Must tie back to our theme
Give players choice through gameplay

HealthCare System

Considerations

Problem

Add healthcare system
Players have to return to town to fund it
If not funded town happiness goes down
Cost scales exponentially
This affects the ending

Plan

Result

Players would at first hard focus the town
When players got comfortable (after 2 or 3 funds) they would start gacha
Eventually forget to fund the healthcare
They would see the large funding cost
Instead of focusing on the healthcare players would give up on it and continue buying gacha

Always got a StarGirl on every purchase
Players wouldn't see much value of the gacha characters
Even with low chances of collecting all they would quickly collect them all
Wouldn't engage much with them.

Needed to be difficult to collect them all
They had to feel special
Had to engage player enough for them to distract players from the town

Gacha Engagement

Considerations

Problem

Add fodder characters
They would have a higher chance of being pulled on most buys
Had to be less eventful and detailed than the StarGirls

Plan

Result

Players were more motivated with this change
Players would spend more time trying to get more characters than helping the town

Jungle Gym

Role: Game Designer, 3D modeling, Level Design

Engine: Unity

Genre: 3D platformer

Type: Collect-a-thon, physics

Team Size: 4

Why: 2rd year game design project

From Jan 2024 - April 2024

Jungle Gym is a 3D platformer. In this game, you play as a monkey who is a world-renowned safety inspector visiting a place called The Jungle Gym to ensure that all the attractions are safe for the public. To set the game apart we've placed the main movement mechanic to be rolling. The game will feature a centralized hub that branches off to multiple unique levels. With this structure, the player has agency over their experience.