Game Design Projects
Below are my current and past game design projects. For some of these projects I took on various roles, both working as a game designer and audio designer. Enjoy!
BMFG
Project Manager, Producer, Team Lead, Game Designer, Composer, Artist
BMFG (Bullet Man Fun Game) is a rougelite bullethell game that is inspired by endlessly unique and creative shoot-em-up games from early 90's Japan. I am the team lead for this project and created the music, and with recent changes in our team, am now creating art for the game.
Core Philosophy
BMFG is built upon the foundation that games, at their core, should be replayable and should give the player a sense of progress as they go towards the end. There is no worse feeling in a game, specifically a rougelike, when you are almost to the end, with the finish line in sight, only to drop the ball at the last moment, being flung back to the title screen. With BMFG, we wanted to have the replayability and variety of a rouge-like game without crushing feeling of losing all of your progress. So, how did we do that?
Equipment
In order for the player to feel some sense of progress, it was necessary that the player be able to keep a reward from each of their playthroughs of the game. Having an equipment system allows the player to feel a sense of progress, that their efforts were not in vain. When the player is completely shut down, it takes a lot more resilience to keep going and having that reward that their efforts paid off encourages the player to keep going deeper.
Story
So what about story? Even though a large part of the game is inspired by the quirky and the strange, there has to be some sort of framework for the player to understand what is going on. In BMFG, you work as a diver on an oil rig. On the job, your coworker tells you about rumors of a treasure hidden at the bottom of the sea. Because that sounds dangerous, you instead hook a camera to a fishing rod and toss it into the sea attached to your fishing rod. After all, chances like this don't come often, and you have to see if your coworker is telling the truth, right?
Items
Although having equipment that gradually increases the strength of the player is good for giving the player a sense of progress, if the core gameplay loop is simply a matter of grinding the same levels and enemies for slightly stronger weapons, you lose the element that makes rouge-like games so unique. Variety. With the use of in-game items, which are randomly assigned to you, the player has a sense that this particular run can still be different from the last, adding to the player experience.
Tools
Godot
Aseprite, Blender
FL Studio 21
Github
Notion
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Phantarma
Game Designer and Composer
Phantarma is a potion-crafting game created for the Pirate Software 2024 Game Jam. In Phantarma, you work as a pharmacist trying to help people who have been inflicted with shadow poisoning. Collect and combine ingredients for an array of wacky customers in Phantarma!
Designer/ Creator
Rat Race is a table-top RPG/ board game created for the One Page RPG Jam. In Rat Race, you play as a new hire trying to deliver a highly valuable parcel for your respective company, especially before your competitors! There can only be one. Navigate the complex and ever changing public transport of Mervont to get the job done the quickest.
BruinWalk
Game Designer and Composer
BruinWalk is a Pokemon Ranger-Inspired game created for the 2024 Spring Ludum Dare Game Jam. As we were all UCLA students at the time of its creation, we wanted to add a UCLA theme to an existing game format that was proven to be successful. In this game, you influence players into joining your club by circling them until their name appears on the bottom screen.
