As Game Designer for Balam and the Spirit Within I was responsible for the game's combat design, AI prototyping, scripting, level design, narrative direction, and user experience. As the key decision-maker across many non-gameplay elements, it was important that I put gameplay first.

 

The first step in this process was prototyping player controls and refining the moment to moment feel. It was important that we made the player character fun to control in an empty room before introducing complexity. Once I was happy with the state of the character, I prototyped two dozen levels to experiment with how the level design could reinforce and empower the player. During this phase, I scripted and prototyped many unique level features such as platforms, pressure plates, and physics puzzles. I used a combination of C# and visual scripting with Playmaker. I also worked closely with our gameplay programmer to prototype and refine our enemy AI to compliment the level design.

 

I began sketching final level designs on paper once we had nailed down our favorite puzzles, platforming challenges, enemy designs, and controls. From there, I pitched, prototyped, playtested, iterated upon, and finalized the level designs while working closely with the gameplay programmer and art director to guarantee a focused vision for the team. Levels were handed over to the art team with notes to emphasis insight into my design decisions. This assisted the artists in reinforcing the goals and gameplay of each level with their art.