Echolight
Designing various mechanics to enforce player agency, like optional challenges
Creating a solid in-game economy by calculating loot and shop prices
Devising a system to procedurally generate engaging levels for a rogue-like using a tile system
Goals & Learnings
Echolight was a large academic project created during the "Beta" at HSMW, where the entire year collaborated to develop a single game that was later released on Steam. I worked as a game designer on the project, responsible for designing progression, game loops, combat encounters, and levels.
Although the road to the final product was bumpy, the project proved to be an invaluable learning experience—not only for developing my hard skills in game design, but also my soft skills, such as working within a large team, handling stressful stages of development, and communicating effectively with colleagues to achieve a shared goal.
#system_design
Creating a progression system with little resources
Due to various struggles during development, we lacked assets, enemies, and dungeon tiles for our levels, and many of our original ideas had to be scrapped. As the release date approached, I was tasked with devising a progression system based on the resources available at the time, in order to create a functional game loop that would still feel both engaging and rewarding.
I chose an approach that essentially turned our game into an endless runner, with progressively stronger enemies and higher-level rewards, encouraging players to push for greater progress. To reduce monotony, I added a variety of challenges that could spawn in rooms, offering players a choice between pursuing greater rewards or opting for a safer run.
#level_design
Levels that let other parts of the game breath
Since our game focused heavily on combat, I decided that the levels should essentially function as arenas, stages for the spectacle, without drawing too much attention to the location itself. The rooms of our dungeon-like levels were designed to be as unrestrictive as possible, providing large spaces for players to battle enemies while also including moments of breathing room between encounters.
#narrative_design
Creating a world that serves the game
Echolight was the first project where I was responsible for worldbuilding. Since we decided not to place a strong focus on story, I instead created a setting that provided a central conflict, multiple key locations, and broad world rules to justify and support the game’s mechanics.
Details
Photoshop
Unity
Blender
Software_Used
