Senior Technical Systems Designer / Senior Technical Game Designer
Dreamland Confectionery
Game Director, Lead Game Designer
Dreamland Confectionery is a comforting story-driven exploration adventure game about exploring, baking, feeding cute creatures, and reconnecting with a lost childhood dream. More and more of the world opens up as you gain the abilities of the creatures surrounding you.
Role | Game Director, Lead Game Designer
Duration | 2020 - 2022
Team Size | 20+
Languages | C#, Lua
Tools | Unity, Spreadsheets, Slides, Photoshop, Maya
Platforms | PC
Awards and Recognition:
❖ Showcased at Steam Next Fest Spring 2022
❖ GWB Game Awards Finalist 2021
❖ Showcased at Wholesome Direct 2021
❖ Featured at USC Games Expo 2021
About:
This project started conceptually as a pair school project in spring 2020. At this point, the game has gone through 3 major iterations and grown throughout each one. Get to know various whimsical characters and creatures, bake for them, and explore together with their help as you unravel a heartwarming story about growing up and navigating unfamiliar territory.
My Role:
As the Game Director and Lead Game Designer of Dreamland Confectionery, I had a number of responsibilities both inside and outside of Unity.
Outside of Unity, I:
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Used charting tools such as Figma to design the core game loop inspired by RPG conventions of resource-gated crafting and ability-based progression with exploration.
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players gather resources to craft desserts, feed them to creatures to earn traversal abilities, and use those abilities to reach rarer resources and higher crafting tiers, the same core gating structure that drives itemization and skill progression in RPGs, adapted here into a foraging-and-friendship loop.
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Story progression additionally unlocks upgrades to crafting capability and inventory capacity, layering a second, slower progression track on top of the moment-to-moment loop.
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Created game design macros, player progression flowcharts, game systems diagrams, and stats spreadsheets in order to specify and communicate each and every gameplay beat and feature for narrative writers, artists, and engineers.
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Used Photoshop to quickly mock up level layouts and concepts.
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Communicated with the Narrative team to design abilities and mechanics that fit the story we wanted to tell.
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Created scale metrics and visual/technical specifications for the 3D artists on the team to facilitate ease of integration into the grey-box level in-Unity.
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Worked with the usability testers to gather feedback on specific aspects of the game and iterate + tune.
> The following is a record of past iterations of the project. <
Early concept: Baking and Exploring
In its earliest iteration, I focused on the mechanics of growing smaller and larger and the opportunities for traversal that it opens up to the player as they look for new ingredients. This was created during Spring 2020.
Core Game Loop
Inside Unity, I:
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Grey-boxed levels and then implemented the final art assets once locked-in.
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Scripted in C# and Lua to rapidly prototype, test, and iterate new gameplay systems/mechanics like traversal abilities, baking, and befriending creatures.
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Implemented and tuned gameplay features as they were being delivered by engineers.
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Utilized Unity Timeline and Cinemachine to create cutscenes.
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Adjusted lighting and utilized Unity's post-processing packages to create stunning post-processing effects.
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Tested the game in-engine for bugs and issues, fixing small issues on-the-fly and noting down bigger bugs in the QA spreadsheet.
New game design, Same core loop: first prototype
In the second prototype, we wanted to try making the world look wilder and make the characters more polished. The creatures you interact with also recieved a visual upgrade. I worked on this in Summer-Fall 2020.
Game Loop, Level Design Concepts, Art Style Boards
In order to convey the game's semi-open world level, I started out with sketching levels in various angles to efficiently convey the visualization of space. I also built art reference decks with my art lead to convey the look and feel of the space.
Introduction of Baking mechanics, Exploring with creatures' unique abilities
In the third iteration, we developed the mechanics of interacting with creatures and baking. Created in Spring 2021.
Narrative Design Implementation, Visual development
In the fourth iteration, we started integrating a linear narrative to the game's progression to bring out the sense of mystery and magic through the characters and world. We also revisited the first iteration's mechanical tie-in with the desserts and developed the feel of exploring and solving environmental puzzles using desserts' powers. This was developed in Spring - Summer 2021.
Initial Level Design and Art Concept for "Tree Interior" area
In order to convey the game's semi-open world level, I started out with sketching levels in various angles to efficiently convey the visualization of space. I also built art reference decks with my art lead to convey the look and feel of the space.
Environmental puzzle design, area designs
In the latest iteration, I collaborated with designers and engineers to further develop the environmental puzzle mechanics and added an element of puzzle platforming while playing with the creatures. These were shipped in the Dreamland Confectionery Demo on Steam.
UI/UX involvement
For this stage of the game development towards Beta, as the Design Lead, I got much more involved in the UI/UX process, our player persona, testing and researching, and iterating mechanics.
Mechanic breakdowns, Feature spreadsheets
