Designing atmospheric adventure games as the
Design Director of indie studio Forgotten Key.
Vind – Trailer
Vind – Full walkthrough
Find more information and two demos available for download on Vind’s itch.io page
My contribution to the Vind demos
- I worked as the design director overseeing all aspects of the game’s design, from writing to gameplay and level design.
- I worked closely with programmers iterating through gameplay features; player abilities, cooking minigame, plantation and build mechanics.
- Designing and prototyping physics based player abilities and puzzles in an open world setting.
- I was responsible for quest design and the demo’s progression structure.
- I worked on balancing and directing development of the character controller; grounded movement including jumping, flight movement and camera behavior.
- I wrote all dialogues as well as many of the item and lore texts.
- I implemented dialogue texts in-engine, including changing font size and color depending on tone and word importance.
- I designed and polished the UI front-end, eg. placement of art assets, font sizes and some of the 2D animations.
Down the Well – Trailer
Find more information and a demo available for download on Down the Well’s itch.io page
My contribution to the Down the Well demo
- I worked as the design director overseeing all aspects of the game’s design, from writing to gameplay and level design.
- I worked closely with programmers iterating through all gameplay features; door teleportation, grass harvesting, lightstick, the Warden puzzle and crafting.
- I did balance and tweaks to the character controller aiming to make it feel heavy and grounded.
- I did tweaks and polish to the 3rd person camera’s behavior.
- I designed the quest and narrative progression, including NPC dialogue and placement structure.
- I wrote all dialogues and some of the lore and item texts.
- I organized all playtesting sessions (in-house and external), collecting and acting upon feedback and recording video material for future reference.
AER: Memories of Old – Trailer
My contribution to AER: Memories of Old
- During development of AER: Memories of Old I was hired as a short-term consultant to do gameplay and narrative design.
- Pen & paper design of an island puzzle (see screenshots below), with the direction of keeping it exploration focused and fairly simple:
- 1) An entryway is hidden behind a waterfall, the player has to find and activate two switches to open it.
- 2) Inside the player finds two circular discs with icons, the discs need to be rotated so that the correct icons align at the center.
- 3) The correct icons are engraved on the floor near the locked door, as well as foreshadowed outside beside the waterfall and next to the switches.
- I wrote character biographies for many of the main- and side-characters, complete with relationship overviews, backgrounds and trait diamonds.
- I wrote dialogue tests, exploring the tone and expressions of the characters.
- I wrote a storyline overview including examples of key moments such as player introduction, character introductions and game ending.
My contribution to an unannounced project in partnership with Bandai Namco
- As the project is unannounced and under NDA, I cannot go into any specifics other than my general role.
- I designed gameplay systems that were tied to the player’s minute-to-minute experience.
- I wrote feature documents focused on gameplay and player experience.
My general contribution to the studio Forgotten Key
During my time at Forgotten Key I have worked on a wide variety of features, from systems design to game feel and narrative. My role includes overseeing the design process for the studio, forming methodologies for the design team and producing features in accordance with the experience pillars set by myself and the Game Director. An important aspect of my work is to clearly communicate the design vision to the rest of the team, and I regularly attend and organize director meetings where all aspects of the project are discussed among representatives of all professions. I have taken part in producing pitch materials for several projects and have an attentive attitude towards the project’s stakeholders and market movements.
My design-related work experience at Forgotten Key includes:
- Holistic design work on atmospheric adventure titles with crafting elements.
- Creating player personas to clearly distinguish and communicate the target audience during pre-production.
- Writing almost all dialogue and lore texts for both Vind and Down the Well.
- Character controller and camera design, both on paper and balancing/tweaking technical implementations.
- Physics based puzzle design in an open world setting.
- Analogue prototyping and in-house testing as part of an iterative development process.
- Game design documentation and clear communication of vision to other studio members.
My project-related work experience at Forgotten Key includes:
- Coaching and giving clear feedback to other designers from all areas; narrative, gameplay and level design.
- Regularly organizing design meetings where all designers feedback each others’ work.
- Developing methodology for game development (design and general) at the studio.
- Organizing and establishing an agile project methodology including sprint reviews, backlogs and check-up meetings.