Roles
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Gameplay designer: Start to End game flow & party tasks
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Ran 2 playtesting sessions, using feedback to balance gameplay & improve user experience via questionnaires & observation
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UI designer: Collaborated with artist to improve player readability
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Producer: Managed team communication and development pipeline to meet successfully meet internal milestones, using Trello & shared source control
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Presented progress in weekly milestone reviews, translating feedback to team for future development
Design & Documentation
​Players complete timed tasks to keep partygoers happy e.g. changing music, repairing the disco ball, serving food.
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Wrote & maintained the game design document, asset lists, playtest results and production schedules. These were referenced by the entire multi-disciplinary team throughout the project.
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Communicated gameplay specifics to the programmer via data flow diagrams, animated mock-ups & storyboards.
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​Task frequency increases over time, meaning players must prioritise their actions - balancing this was informed by playtesting. ​​
Animated mock-up for in-game song selections. This was created for the programmer and artist.
Storyboard: How players completes tasks in the physical space. This visualised the game flow and accompanied flow graphs in the GDD.
I broke tasks into clear variables to better scale difficulty and inform programmers of the technical requirements,
Animated mock-up for in-game song selections. This was created for the programmer and artist.
User Interface
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User Interface elements were designed to be simple, text-light and easily readable in contrast to the hectic gameplay.
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Every gameplay action had some responsive UI or animated response to reward players for their efforts even in failure.
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The sprint meters' purpose was originally unclear to playtesters. As a result I rewrote the opening tutorial and collaborated with our artist to redesign the meter with clearer iconography. This was confirmed with successive playtests.
Appears post-game to reflect player's skill. (Top-Left) Version 1, Aimed to push players back into replaying. Simpler design relying on visuals. (Top-Right) Version 2, updated post-playtest to better display the player's actions. (Bottom) End screen as seen in the final release. Animation changes depending on the final score.
When initial play testers found the UI confusing, their colours & icons were updated for clearness & consistency
Appears post-game to reflect player's skill. (Top-Left) Version 1, Aimed to push players back into replaying. Simpler design relying on visuals. (Top-Right) Version 2, updated post-playtest to better display the player's actions. (Bottom) End screen as seen in the final release. Animation changes depending on the final score.
Balancing Difficulty
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Playtesting was organised around a major session during Alpha release and smaller informal playtests throughout development.
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Qualitative and quantitative results were recorded via player observation, post-game questionnaires and set values (heatmaps, final scores, time played, etc.).​
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Sessions identified issues in adjusting difficulty, bug testing, clarifying task goals and ensuring readable UI
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Example: Playtesters didn't associate the disco ball with its lever, which was needed to complete its task. To solve this I ensured there was a shared visual effects when repairs were needed.​
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Heatmaps were used to identify common player routes and clipping issues. Levels were redesigned to encourage path variety as a result.
These questions were targeting players' understanding of UI elements and gameplay tasks
I analysed all written and observational feedback from players to identify clear issues and actionable tasks.
The vertical slice was intended to show how difficulty could be scaled within a short time frame
These questions were targeting players' understanding of UI elements and gameplay tasks