Collaborated with a multidisciplinary team of designers, 3D modelers, concept artists, animators, programmers, and sound engineers. Initially started the project as a narrative designer, I transitioned to level design working on building out the environments and optimizing the player experience as the narrative became more solidified.

This project was started a semester before I had hopped on the team. Many of the designers who started the project we’re not there when I joined. My first semester for the collab studio I got to work with a friend of mine, Brett Frost (super talented designer) and someone I met for the first time, Jordan Fridie. The project was in a semi-rough state when we all started working on it that summer. But in the short 2 months we managed to really get the game running and in a state that would put us in a good position for the semester after. At first, we all tried to get multiplayer working which, was a rough patch, but we were able to figure it out for the most part. Jordan and Brett tackled the technical design aspects while I worked on making level walkthroughs, doing blockouts (Brett assisted in this as well), and narrative design.

Next semester, we gained 2 of the original designers back from the prior. Angela and Rita, Angela acted as our producer, while Rita was a designer as well. The goal for this semester was to get the levels from blockout to being polished. As well as implementing the systems that Jordan and Brett had created. This semester I stepped away from documentation and narrative and started focusing strictly on blockouts and polishing. Adding things like interactions in the levels, creating sequences, and doing quality control on the props that the art team was creating.

This semester had a new batch of problems that the prior did not. We came to realize that the game wasn’t really fun, it felt like a walking simulator. It needed something to really engage the player. So, we scrapped our original idea and decided to go with a horror theme to make the gameplay more enticing. As well as adding some mechanics like a gun and changing the flow of the game by giving the player their abilities in the starting level.

This was my first time working with a team creatively and it was really fun, and I’ve learned a lot from it. Not being the only one in charge of the creative decisions like I previously was in my independent projects was both relaxing and at sometimes frustrating. Getting 5 people to agree on something and then having our lead agree on it was difficult at times, but I believe that everyone’s creative thoughts and opinions on this project were all allowed to flourish, and it allowed to us to make it as it is now.

The project is getting very close to being in a finished state. There are just some key elements and polish that still need to be finished but will be wrapping up hopefully by next semester.