DIVIDED SKIES | 2023
full cycle
32 weeks
30+ devs
Technical Design
Narrative Design
UI / UX Design
Responsibilities
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Led the design team
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Designed and implemented the missions
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Designed and implemented the majority of UI
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Established the narrative, characters, dialogue, etc.
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Helped design the player weapon system and combat
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Blocked out and set-dressed the sewer combat area
Unreal Engine 5
Blueprints
Released on Steam
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Game summary
Race through the slums of futuristic Mumbai and complete various missions as Kyra - a member of the Nandaka gang.
Transport illegal tech and mechanical enhancements, fight off rival gangs, chase down foes and explore hidden areas as you uncover the secrets of this dystopian metropolis.
Game details
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Genre
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Player support
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Platforms
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Release date
GAME OVERVIEW
Research and prototyping weapons
At the start of the project, I was responsible for establishing the design of the weapon system. I started out with research and a proposal, after which I documented relevant technical breakdowns for our programmers. Once the system was created, I tweaked the weapon according to feedback. As we did not have enemies at the time, I implemented a simple dummy system to test the feel of the weapon. Lastly, I added feedback to the weapon in forms of SFX and VFX to achieve the intended feel.
Responsibilities
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Researched player weapons in other games and proposed a system
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Documented technical breakdowns for our programmers
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Created a metrics sheet to track iterations
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Implemented a dummy system for target practice
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Tweaked and iterated on the player weapon
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Implemented SFX and VFX for the player weapon
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Collaborated on creating a fitting crosshair
Weapon metrics sheet
Video showcasing the iteration process
COMBAT DESIGN
Analyzing feedback and iterating
Alongside designing and tweaking the player weapon, I play tested with our target audience and fellow students. I conducted a special playtest regarding player fantasy to identify how we could improve the feel and visuals of the weapon.
After creating the initial weapon system, we realized that combat fell short from expectations, and adjustments weren't changing that. This is where I took a step back and analyzed the experience as a whole. I took my time to research combat design, which helped me understand the problem and write up a proposal to the team.
Responsibilities
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Researched and proposed a solution to improve the combat experience
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Play tested and analyzed player fantasy feedback
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Proposed a solution and collaborated to improve the weapon (system)
A short essay on the problem I solved regarding player fantasy and the player weapon
A short essay on the problem I solved regarding the combat experience
Missions and systems
As the technical narrative designer, it was my job to work together with our writer to bring our narrative to live through missions.
Responsibilities
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Shaped and designed the missions
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Implemented missions using our in-house mission system
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Extended the mission system functionality for the onboarding mission
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Wrote the first drafts of dialogue
Video showcasing the last iteration of the missions
For the onboarding mission, we needed an extension to the system to register player input(s). Due to the nature of the execution order of our existing system, I created a function on a timer that checks for inputs (in no order) and updates the UI. Once the system registers that the player has used the inputs, it will clear the timer and variables and move on to the next event.
TECHNICAL NARRATIVE DESIGN
Worldbuilding and characters
Before we created the missions, we needed proper worldbuilding. I initialized this process by researching broad topics such as geography and politics and establishing the narrative of the game world. This helped us further develop our characters and missions in a meaningful way, and additionally helped artists with concepting the city and relevant narrative ingredients.
Furthermore, I wrote the character(s) R.O.B and Mittens, a robot and cat pair. They were put in the story to give the player a better understanding of the inequality and specifically the cruelty of the upper-class population within the game’s world. The reasoning for their cutesy design was to relieve the political and emotional nature of their darker backstory so that it would not be too overbearing for our target audience.
Responsibilities
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Initialized worldbuilding
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Wrote the character(s) R.O.B and Mittens
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Assisted in the development of other characters
A short essay I wrote on a problem I resolved regarding character portraits and scope
A short summary written by me on the game world narrative
Menu's and other screens
Due to lack of manpower, I took on the UI/UX of the game. I started by laying out the wireframes and experimenting with them on a Miro board. As we did not have a UI artist, I used the available assets to create mock-ups of the menu's with PowerPoint. Once everything was laid out, I jumped into the engine to implement.
Responsibilities
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Wireframed and implemented menu's and other screens
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Splash screen
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Main menu
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Loading screen
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Pause menu
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Confirmation screens
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Credits menu
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Settings menu
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Video showcasing the final iterations on the menu's
Video showcasing my Blueprinting on some of the menu's, clean and commented code
UI / UX DESIGN
Special menu's
As a way to further my technical skills, I challenged myself to create modular systems for menu's that required data, such as the credits menu and build number widget.
I wanted to find a simple way for anyone on the team to enter the credits data in engine for the credits menu. We had never established build number conventions, so I established those alongside a how-to document to update the number in engine.
Responsibilities
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Established pipelines for the credits and build number
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Created systems for the credits menu and build number widget
The primary function used to filter out developers from the data table and display them on the credits screen with appropriate spacing according to the number of developers
Instructions I wrote on adjusting the build number in engine