LEAD DESIGNER
Welcome to Stuffed, a 3D action platforming game where you are a Teddy Bear who wakes up with his 2 friends, a lion and an eagle, missing and under the control of an evil wizard puppet. To top it all off, several old, and forgotten toys are hostile!
I was the lead designer on the project, designing the levels and mechanics, as well as collaborating with the art and programming teams and our industry partner from Insomniac Games.
RESPONSIBILITIES
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Level Design
Another level designer and I were in charge of crafting the levels for Stuffed. We originally wanted a hub world (like Super Mario 64) and 9 levels but that had to be scoped down to 3 longer, linear levels. We had to make the levels easy enough for a kid to play but still interesting and fun for an older audience.
Player Mechanics
While concepting the game, we really wanted to have one prop the character uses that has multiple mechanics attached to it. That ended up being the trusty umbrella that Stuff uses. We went with 2 uses for combat (Attacking, shielding, reflecting) and 2 uses for traversal (ziplining, and floating). Having 4 prop-based mechanics like this helped keep them polished and in scope, as well as created some interesting level opportunities.
Progression
When you combine the player mechanics with the level design, you get the progression system. You start out originally with just your jump and double jump so that the player can get used to the character controller and camera. Later in level 1 and level 2 you learn attacking, ziplining, floating, and shielding. The way mechanics are introduced feels natural and evenly spaced out. By level 3 the player has mastered all mechanics and feels confident taking on the boss.
Boss
For the boss fight, I worked with our AI programmer to make sure that the boss was balanced and utilized everything the player has learned. The boss fight has 3 Phases: Phase 1 where you dodge the Wizard's attacks by jumping. Phase 2 where you float from platform to platform to destroy the Wizard's orbs, and Phase 3 where shielding and reflecting the Wizard's attacks is required. The fight is a challenging yet satisfying conclusion to the game.