Game Designer
Genre: 3D Physics-based Action Platformer
Release: February 2024
Platforms: Steam, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series S/X
Studio: Evening Star
Publisher: Private Division
Level Design
Designed gameplay revisions, layout clean-up, and environment decor across 15+ story mode levels across Vanillatown, Moltobene, Industria, and Edditorium worlds. Led the gameplay design and art direction of the Star Globes world, along with final gameplay tuning across all levels.
Economy Design & Balancing
I owned the balancing of the in-game scoring system and economy. This included setting point values for all in-game character moves, gameplay mechanics, superlatives, and score thresholds to unlock postcards.
Quality Assurance
I was Evening Star’s primary internal QA Tester, and performed regression testing across all major platforms for 1st-party submissions and publisher milestone deliveries.
Level Design Examples:
Vanillatown 1-4:
I was tasked with removing the Penguinball Boss Battle from the finale of the level and replacing it with additional core gameplay sections. I also added in Denizen Dilemmas and Super Coins; these are collectables and side quests found in every story mode level.
Industria 7-1: Magnetic Attraction
For Industria, I was given all levels in a whiteboxed state and utilized our studio’s proprietary 3D engine tools to add all environmental decor and props.i I did this across Vanillatown, Moltobene, and Edditorium levels as well.
This involved manually “painting” all terrain faces/edges using our engine’s proc-gen system, building out new geometry for mid-ground architecture, placing decals and environmental decor, and designing gameplay adjustments as needed to ensure gameplay continuity.
Star Globes:
The Star Globes are a series of 15 unlockable challenge levels. They focus on 1-2 gameplay objects used in creative ways not found in the Story Mode.
I led the world’s visual direction to ensure it did not conflict with the existing gameplay, as the levels had been designed and whiteboxed prior to any conceptual art or asset creation. I took complete ownership of 3 levels, and did all final level revisions and environment decor for the remaining 12 levels.
Case Study: Economy Design & Balancing
Task
Penny’s Big Breakaway is heavily inspired by classic arcade titles, which often include the ability for players to achieve a high score. Our creative directors wanted to incentivize high scores by granting players an in-game reward for the player’s Scrapbook at the end of each Story Mode level if a predetermined score threshold was met.
As the game was entering the final stages of production, the team recognized that the current in-game scoring system/economy was still utilizing temporary values across the board and had many moving parts that weren’t fully defined or prioritized. I was tasked with taking a deep look at the system to untangle and standardize the different aspects that we needed to include for scoring.
Design Process
The goal was two pronged: 1) Determine an inclusive scoring system that feels fair for most playstyles, and 2) provide hardcore players with a real challenge with the Scrapbook rewards. This was a massive overhaul of the system that needed to be approached sequentially, so I further divided the problem into the following steps:
1. Define what the ideal playstyle/player experience is for Story Mode vs. Time Attack
For PBB’s Time Attack mode, completing a level in the shortest amount of time was the only thing that mattered to get your playthrough up on the leaderboard. For Story Mode, I proposed that the ideal player experience would have a broader mix of skilled play (uninterrupted combos, speed, avoiding hazards) and complete level exploration (collecting Show Pieces, completing Denizen Dilemmas, coins).
2. Audit all score-granting mechanics and in-game interactions
Before modifying any existing values, we needed to determine just how many mechanics we actually had that affected the in-game scoring, as we had no documentation on the design side for this. I did a full audit of the game alongside engineering to determine what parts of the game were currently affecting the score, and if there are any additions or exclusions we wanted to make based on this. We determined that the score thresholds would only be set for the Story Mode and Star Globe levels with minor edits to the latter. Below are some of the initial planning documents I created to try and wrangle everything:
- Coins: Standard collectibles that added a fixed amount to the score, and would apply a multiplier if collected sequentially.
- YoYo Moves: Each individual move (throwing the yoyo, swinging) in Penny’s kit had a score attached to it
- Game Object Interactions: Anytime Penny interacted with a game object (i.e. checkpoint, hitting a penguin, etc.) It also included continuous interactions, such as riding down a lava pipe.
- Busker Bonus: A QTE minigame present at the end of each level
- Superlatives: These were bonus points tallied at the very end of the level, and were based on your performance throughout the level (based on speed, coins collected, damage taken, etc.)
- Showpieces: Each level had 3 optional challenge sections that rewarded the player with a Showpiece collectible. Players were given a Superlative based on how many they collected.
- Denizen Dilemmas: Each level has optional sidequests given by NPCs that reward the player with a Dilemma completion. Players were given a Superlative based on how many they completed.
I also went in-editor and did a full sweep of all current in-game collectibles, as any changes to the scoring could also have cascading effects on the existing items in each level.
3. “The Coin Standard”
With all scoring opportunities documented, I determined the best path forward to be to make all of the score values relative to a single metric: the value of collecting a single in-game Coin. For example, a simple YoYo move such as “YoYo Throw” could be equivalent in difficulty to collecting 3 coins in a level, but “YoYo Swing” could be equivalent to collecting 5 coins.
This helped ground the scoring to a central point that I could then build off of, so I went ahead and set preliminary values for the difficulty of the moves/game object interactions.
4. Gather player telemetry with dev tools
In collaboration with the Engineering department, I requested an internal dev tool that could help us record player telemetry. I needed a broader sample size outside of my own, so the tool would help us gather data from 20+ additional playtesters to help understand what a general playthrough looked like. Below is an example of the info we could get from the tool:
As we had a limited amount of time to collect the telemetry, I told our playtesters to prioritize completing the 1st level of each world instead of doing a full playthrough, as this would give us a good benchmark for the rest of the world. Below is a sample of what the final output looked like, alongside some charts indicating average combo length in a few of the levels.
5. Set preliminary values for all score granting-items (except scrapbook)
I analyzed and compared all player telemetry available to continue to iterate and set final values for the different items in the game. Through the dev tool I was able to see items such as average combo length per level, the distribution between moves being performed, and other metrics. At this point I also set the value of the Busker Stage, superlatives, and the small in-game shop that had assist items. These are just some of the many things that needed to have a score:
6. Final touches and setting the Scrapbook thresholds
Once we were happy with the values and finished testing them as much as we could, I set the final values for the scrapbook, which were aligned to our most skilled players. Here is a sample of the thresholds and then a few tests I ran to see the scores in action:
We were able to successfully set scores and scrapbook thresholds that felt achievable in time for PBB’s gold master build, and they were generally well received by our players! This was a very daunting task but I felt like it was such a fun puzzle in the end to figure out, and it is the work I am most proud of while working on Penny.
Learnings
While I had worked with telemetry before, I had never had the opportunity to develop/set parameters for my own tool and was very grateful to have the opportunity to do so. If given the chance to do it again, I would have liked to have gathered a lot more internal/external telemetry. While I was happy with the final numbers and player reception was generally positive, I know it could have been done better had we gotten more telemetry. Additionally, it showed me the importance of considering these systems from the start, as a lot of the work had to be done retroactively instead of while the systems were initially being built/proposed.