Witherbloom
Third-person Action RPG gameplay with survival
4 player co-ops for dungeon-crawler
Pick 1 of 16 classes
Overcome twisted aberrations and surreal environments
Plunder divine realms for resources, allies, & answers
Rebuild a shattered world… if you can survive.
Main Responsibilities
- Conceptualization and implementation of gameplay systems, features, and mechanics
- Collaborating on gameplay direction
- Technical implementation of gameplay systems and creation of content pipelines for game elements
- Conceptualization and implementation of gameplay levels, narrative, and other content
- Creative collaboration with other disciplines to ensure the intended gameplay experience
- Collaboration with production to ensure a feasible scope
Base-building mechanics
The Hearth
Contributed to prototyping efforts on in-house base building systems
- Implementation of early passes on building systems with hexagonal tiles
- Aligning artistic vision for cozy-feeling home base with design intention
- Demo characters setup and other solutions for efficient developer testing
- Identified issues in paper design related to expansion and tile unlocking
Act 1 Narrative implementation
I owned and implemented much of the quest and dialogue scripting for Act 1 and 2.
Key deliverables for content passes included a September Marketing build, VanExpo demo, and multiple rounds of public playtesting through NineDots’ community-building and publishing support efforts.
I standardized our implementation approach across 3 designers by
- identifying and documenting the ideal functional patterns/templates
- applying these patterns across all similar cases in content plans
- tracking application of solutions across various content areas
- testing to quickly resolve where previous solutions had begun to fail
My Levels
>>> LEVEL DESIGN PORTFOLIO <<<
Unreal Editor 5 tools I applied in this project
- World Partition
- Data Layers
- Gameplay Abilities
- Flow Graph
- Narrative3 aka Narrative Tales
The Outpouring, Floor 1 of the Sanctum of Harmony
As seen in Nine Dots Backstage #3
I joined this team after the concept stage for this level was already complete, and helped environment artists realize and address friction discovered during playtesting.
Once first art iterations were completed, I realigned the branch unlock order and content within branches. There were many new constraints which had been hardened during iteration on core gameplay.
I designed puzzles requiring players to shift weather from hot to cold & back again in order to advance deeper into the second branch.
I populated survival resources, interactables, and critical quest objects.
I also authored blueprint for more than 8 multiplayer-ready level actors across dungeons in this game.
My blueprint often applies component-driven architecture and Gameplay Abilities, Effects, and Tags.
My role also included Encounter Design for planning, implementing, and tuning all combat.
Environment artists and I worked closely together in adapting existing rooms to create arenas that support deeply tactical combat with up to four co-op players.
The Scatter, Floor 2 of the Sanctum of Harmony
Multiple island hopping loops
[more details closer to release]
You’ll have to wait to see more:
at least until the second floor
of this dungeon is shared with
all our fans in the near future!
– JD
I was actively involved in the conception stages for this dungeon, although the main conceit of using teleporters to hop between scattered islands had already been established.
The design challenges included
- a contraint that portals must always act as one-way valves
- encouraging parties to travel between islands as a group
- asking players to solve puzzles that apply global states across islands
But our solutions created an engaging experience combining both dungeon-crawler and survival elements in novel ways.
Despite getting assistance in delivering the layout as I focused elsewhere for our more immediate deliverables, I later dictated the level flow. My mark and level design sensibles are evident in the way the paths through these islands are used to deliver a dungeon experience, and in the gameplay and interactive elements that are arranged throughout the many paths one can explore here.
