9 Weeks
~20
Sycle is a turn-based strategy roguelite centered around the concept of Sacrifice,
featuring the goddess Itzel, on her journey to restore the world.
During this project I focused on Gameplay, System and Level design.
9 Weeks
12
Wonder Wings is a 3D flying shooting game with a toony aesthetic.
My main responsibilities were Combat, System, and Level design.
6 Weeks
11
Priestcore is a fast-paced first person arena shooter
highlighting the last stand of Father Gabriel against invading hordes of demons.
As the lead designer, I took care of Project Management and every aspect
of its design.
4 Weeks
11
Nocturnal is a 2D platformer with a dark setting,
showcasing Robin's nightmare and his escape.
My main responsibilities were Gameplay and Level design.
My name is Claudio Scuderi, and I'm a technical game designer studying at PlaygroundSquad in
Falun, Sweden.
Ever since I was a child, I have been very curious and have cultivated many interests.
To list a few of them they ranged from astronomy to technology, from extreme sports to film,
books, anime, and mangas.
Furthermore, I have always been immensely attracted to video games and competitions. During my
childhood I would watch my two brothers playing on a console all the time, and I still remember
vividly the fun I had when I first played.
That's how this passion of mine was born, and ever since that moment, I knew I wanted to work
with something related to games.
Today, that passion is channeled into my studies and personal projects. I really enjoy the
process of learning and exploring
all kinds of new concepts in game design. I am driven not only by my curiosity about all aspects
of game development but also by
a love for problem-solving that constantly challenges me to grow.
My approach to game design involves a hands-on, immersive experience. I spend a significant
amount of my time working directly
within the engine, implementing, and programming, always with an eye toward the best user
experience.
Thanks to my computer science background, I specialize in the more programming-adjacent
technical side of design, mostly as it relates
to my favourite side of design, Gameplay design, and I also really enjoy working on Systems
design as I love competitive games and their balancing always attracted my curiosity.
As far as teams go, I value collaboration highly. My experience at PlaygroundSquad has shown me
the importance of trusting team members and
the power of diverse skills in creating quality projects. Recently, I started putting a lot of
value in establishing and following a set of
best practices, conventions, and workflows for the whole team. This helps tremendously in
avoiding confusion, saving time, and elimitating conflicts.
Further, I have found that cultivating an environment where making games is fun and exciting for
the whole team always shines through to the final product.
In essence, I am someone who cherishes the process of learning, loves the challenge of
problem-solving,
and is always excited to bring ideas to life through game design.
My final goal? To professionally craft accessible and impactful experiences that will leave a
mark in the industry and a lasting impression on the player.
9 Weeks
~20
Sycle is a turn-based strategy roguelite centered around the concept of Sacrifice, featuring
the goddess Itzel, on her journey to restore the world.
During this project I focused on Gameplay, System and Level design.
9 Weeks
12
Wonder Wings is a 3D flying shooting game with a toony aesthetic.
My main responsibilities were Combat, System, and Level design.
6 Weeks
11
Priestcore is a fast-paced first person arena shooter, highlighting the last stand
of Father Gabriel against invading hordes of demons.
As the lead designer, I took care of the Project Management and every aspect
of its design.
4 Weeks
11
Nocturnal is a 2D platformer with a dark setting, showcasing
Robin's nightmare and his escape.
My main responsibilities were Gameplay and Level design.
Priestcore is a fast paced first person arena shooter with a cel-shaded aesthetic, set during
the Apocalypse.
The player takes the role of Father Gabriel, the priest of Belsit. His role? Defend his
cathedral
from the incoming waves of demons, exterminate each one of them and survive.
For this project, the team and I were aware that we would be using an unfamiliar engine called
Tengine.
Additionally, we had a strict deadline of 6 weeks to deliver a playable and enjoyable game.
Given these constraints, I carefully considered which game concept would be most suitable for
such a
short timeframe. Ultimately, I chose to develop an FPS Arena Shooter, which allowed the artist
to save
time by focusing on a single environment and eliminating the need for a player character model.
6 Weeks Group Project
11 Team Members
Made in Tengine
Platforms: Windows & Playstation 5
Lead Designer: game vision, meetings, decision-making and presentations, as well as scrum master.
Gameplay Design: responsible of designing the game´s core mechanics, and the enemies behaviour.
Level Design: designed the game level, whiteboxed it in engine, and added all the colliders and triggers required.
System Design: balanced the enemies stats and the power-ups scaling. Moreover, designed a wave system to spawn enemies, that increases periodically.
The project began with a blank canvas and the excitement of possibility. I was entrusted with the responsibility of designing the game from scratch and writing the Game Design Document (GDD). Though I had the final say on our decisions, the team had a lot of interesting and exciting ideas for features, mechanics, animations, and more. Everyone had suggestions and was involved in shaping the game.
In the role of project manager, I found myself in the position of a guiding hand, ensuring the team remained focused and efficient. I was the scrum leader every morning, and I also handled the task of balancing resources, managing timelines, and coordinating efforts with respect for each team member's unique contributions.
In this project we wanted the player to experience the power and tension that comes from playing a
fast-paced shooter,
where they always have to be on the move and obliterate an infinite amount of enemies.
Our gameplay was very inspired by games like Doom and Ultrakill, we wanted enemy variety, but we
ended having only
two enemy types for a programming bottleneck as we were developing the game in an almost barebone
engine.
These enemies were: a small Imp demon that would chase the player and die with a few projectiles,
its strenght being in
its speed and numbers; and a bigger unit called the Hog, that would shoot the player when they enter
its range, but in
exchange of its attack range and large quantity of health points, it was a rarer and much slower
unit.
Moreover, I designed the movement and shooting mechanic of our player. For the movement, the goal
was to make the player feel light on their feet
while moving around, for that I designed a fast movement speed with a low gravity on the player, and
a dash mechanic to dodge
enemy projectiles or quickly reposition on the map.
Regarding the shooting, we did not have enough time to develop different guns, so I focused on
giving the player an automatic
weapon with flat damage no matter the distance, as they would be fighting infinite waves of enemies,
and I felt that was the
best choice to support the fast-pace feeling of our game and have a good playtime, as the player
could continuously shoot enemies from far
away if they kept moving. If they ever stopped they would get drowned by the amount of incoming
enemies.
Before focusing on our game level I expanded the game setting to have a coherent space. Our final setting was very similar to the Castlevania TV series, basically waves of demons were pillaging the Earth and attacking any people or religious building. The player would play as a priest protecting his cathedral and for this reason, the game level resembled a real cathedral. In fact, before working on the actual level, I researched the architecture of many cathedrals (I was lucky enough to have visited many of them in Italy), the key elements that most if not all of them shared, like benches, pillars or the altars, and I also noticed how most of the buildings also shared the same cross shape. After collecting enough info I and the other designer started working on some level mockups. My goal for the level was to have a large space around the pillars for the player to run around, and an altar area where our power-ups would spawn. After completing our mockups, we compared them to see the strong and weak aspects of both, and for the final product we decided to mix our game levels into one to utilize the strenghts of both. For example, I wanted to add some kind of siderooms in my level as it was very rectangular shaped and the experience inside it felt kinda monotonous. To solve this, inspired by my colleague´s level, I added into mine a second floor that drastically improved the gameplay. After that, I noticed how the enemies could block the entrances to the second floor if there were too many, so I changed the pathways to reach it, adding a total of five different routes. Now that I had a level, I needed some kind of obstacles or props to fill the empty space, and knowing that the game was set in an Apocalypse, I talked with our artists to break existing assets in our level, making the level feel affected by the changes in the game world. This resulted in using broken pillars or benches as obstacles.
All in all, it was a good experience to learn how challenging it can be to work with a new tool such as a different Engine. We had to adapt our game to our constraints and look for creative solutions to obtain good performance and mechanics. I had the opportunity to be the Project Lead and take a lot of responsibility for the game, stepping in to help wherever we were struggling in the process.
Sycle is a turn-based roguelite with a Mesoamerican-like aesthetic and a unique twist, a reverse
progression system.
In Sycle, the player's journey is marked by growing weaker as they advance. The crux of success
lies in Strategic decision-making and resource management.
The player assumes the role of Itzel, the Goddess of Change. Her role is to perpetually
sacrifice a portion of herself within each cycle to breathe life back
into a desolate world.
Our objective for this project was to carve out a niche in the realm of roguelites, charting a
course different from contemporaries.
For that, we chose Reverse Progression and Sacrifice as our main pillars, injecting an
innovative dynamic where empowerment yields to vulnerability.
Additionally, we wanted to push for an aesthetic that was not seen much in the industry, and
thanks to one of our team members' background, we discovered
how the ancient Mesoamerican cultures like the Aztec and Maya civilizations, seamlessly
integrated with the theme of Sacrifice.
9 Weeks Group Project
~20 Team Members
Powered by Unreal Engine 4
Platforms: Windows
Gameplay Design: designed the player´s abilities, Damage over time(DOTs) and status effects. Moreover, introduced environmental obstacles, enhancing strategic depth.
Level Design: drafted and whiteboxed multiple levels, incorporating diverse win conditions. Ensured balance between teaching mechanics, combat scenarios, and puzzle-solving elements.
System Design: responsible for the delicate balance of the reverse progression system and gameplay elements. Conducted extensive playtesting, identifying and addressing bugs, and fine-tuning mechanics for an optimal player experience.
At the start of the project, I was entrusted with the making of the player´s abilities. Before starting to design skills that would work well for a strategic turn-based game, I focused on our main character Persona, the goddess Itzel, and what would fit her theme, not only mechanic-wise, but also from a narrative point of view. In doing so I started researching various Mythologies and their related gods, mostly Mesopotamian, Inca, and African until I found all the references I needed. The player had 6 abilities at their disposal (only 4 made it into the game), each with a unique effect and different use case, they are:
The earthquake is an ability that deals damage to enemies and pushes them away from the player, creating a shield of rocks and difficult terrain around Itzel. This skill was inspired by the Earth Mother and fertility goddess of Inca mythology Pachamama, which embodies the mountains and causes earthquakes. Its main use is not only to damage enemies but to gain protection from ranged attacks or secure some time as melee enemies would have to find another path or break the newly created obstacle. The process in mind when designing this skill was to give the player some kind of survivability as they would be playing as one vs many.
The meteor fall is a short-range ability that deals massive damage, burns enemies in a large area, and destroys the obstacles hit. This skill was inspired by Ishtar the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. This skill is meant to be used against a group of enemies or to open paths that would be inaccessible otherwise. The design for this ability was quite simple, the game required some kind of powerful attack to kill multiple enemies, so I created a short-range explosive spell, that would also modify the environment, as a meteor falling to the ground would definitely have a big effect in the area around it.
The tornado is an ability that deals low damage and pushes all the enemies around it. This skill was inspired by Hadad the storm and rain god in the ancient Mesopotamian religions. The tornado's main use is to displace enemies into obstacles to damage or kill them. For example, the player could instantly kill a strong enemy by making it fall into a canyon. The process behind this skill was to create something that made the player interact with the environment and use it to its advantage, enabling various playstyles.
The holy smite is a long-range ability that damages enemies and lowers their defense, moreover, it ignores obstacles in its trajectory, as it´s literal lightning falling from the sky. This skill was inspired by Inanna the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of fertility and enforcer of divine justice. This ability was the last one to be made, and while doing so, I realized how the player was missing a long-range attack or in general an action to make when enemies were still far away. For this reason, I opted for a long-range attack that debuffed enemies.
After the abilities were done I needed to design various obstacles to fill the game grid with something other than walls and covers and give a reason to the player to interact with the environment. Since my programmers already did the code for damage-over-time effects for the player´s abilities, I decided to build upon them and add new effects with similar behaviors, so that I could modify them myself. I ended up creating over 10 different obstacles with distinctive effects, pointy walls that would make enemies bleed, columns that could be broken and stun enemies hit by the rubble, terrains that would slow or damage enemies, boulders that could be pushed and knock away enemies and so on.
Some of the environmental obstacles.
While I worked on the player´s abilities and obstacles, my colleagues designed 3 enemies with different behaviours. As soon as these elements were established in the game I started planning our levels. I first studied our main references (XCOM, Warhammer Mechanicus) and tried to understand their process and goals when creating a level. Both of our references included controlling various allies while in our game we played as a single unit, so I had to be mindful of the enemy placement in the level, their range, and movement speed. (Worth noting that after many playtests we decided to add familiars as sub-units to help Itzel in her fight) Now that I knew my constraints, before starting to create mockups for the levels, I decided to write the goals and context that the levels should follow. Some levels focused on teaching certain mechanics to the player; others would focus on pure combat and non-linearity, giving multiple routes to the player, to choose their favourite playstyle; another level would focus on puzzle solving, such as finding and activating all the altars in the level to open the exit door and escape the enemy patrols.
One of the first level design mockups.
With the core elements in place, it was time to balance them. As the designer that created most of those elements, I playtested for many hours to discern if those mechanics provided the experience I wanted for our players, and while I was at it, I also created a document for discovered bugs, with a guide on how to replicate them and a possible solution. Moreover, as this was a school project, each week other students would playtest our game, so I prepared a form for them to compile and another document to collect all that valuable feedback. Thanks to the playtest, we realized many issues with the core loop and the balancing of the game. The game went through many changes, for example, at first we used AP (action points) to use our abilities, but we decided to change that resource to HP (health point) to display even better our core pillar Sacrifice. With that update other problems arose, as we would be using our life for each spell thrown at the enemies, so I introduced a healing mechanic when the player killed an enemy with a melee attack. In addition, I tweaked the player and enemies´ stats until the game reached the desired feel.
Example of a game´s patch.
This project has been an important lesson. It was my and most of the group's first game in Unreal Engine, and we ended up overscoping a bit too much. Even so, we learned a lot, and my contributions to the project were wide-spanning and focused a lot on both the team and my individual work. I had the chance to focus on what I want to specialize in, that being Gameplay and System design. Moreover, I ended up having to take a lot of responsibility for the game, which I did not mind, and step in to help wherever we were struggling in the process. Our scope might have been too big for Sycle, resulting in a small demo rather than the complete game we desired, but it was a fun experience and a good lesson for the future.
Wonder Wings takes flight as a vibrant 3D flying shooting game where toys spring to life in
whimsical adventure. Players assume control of Mata, a plushie piloting a toy plane, with the
mission of thwarting the evil wizard SpellHound and liberating brainwashed toys. The challenge
lies in navigating through a obstacle-laden environment and engaging in aerial combat without
succumbing to enemy fire or crashing the plane.
With this game, we aimed to address a gap in the market for space shooters, but with a unique
twist, transforming spaceships into toys to align with artistic constraints. Embracing a younger
target audience, the game features a toony and colorful aesthetic, offering a relaxing yet
engaging experience for all players.
9 Weeks Group Project
14 Team Members
Made in Unity
Platforms: PC
Gameplay Design: crafted player movement and shooting mechanics, along with the design of four distinct enemy types.
Level Design: designed an open space room for a satisfying flying experience, incorporated puzzles with hidden rewards, and strategically positioned enemies with varied movement patterns.
System Design: responsible for the balancing of player and enemy stats, including those of the boss character.
I took care of the majority of the gameplay-related mechanics for this project. At the time I was playing the early access version of Everspace 2, so I had an optimal reference for what should have been our space shooter, but as we adapted our concept to our constraints we used toys instead of spaceships. Consequently, the environment went through some changes, it would not be outer space but the inside of a house. For this reason, I also took inspiration from games such as TOY STORY 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue and Airfix Dogfighter, as they were set in a very similar setting. The game core loop revolves around exploring rooms within a house, searching for power-ups and secrets, battling malevolent toys, and ultimately facing off against each room's boss.
Movement was one of our core mechanics, and we wanted it to be intuitive and easy to control, so even a younger audience could play without problems. I started by giving the toy plane a permanent forward movement, so that our players would have only to steer and worry about the direction rather than their speed. After that, I added a rotation mechanic to the plane, using the Q or E keys, would make our plane rotate to the left or the right, with the camera following said rotation, giving the chance to the player to perform stunts to evade enemy projectiles or explore parts of the level too tight to be entered while in a horizontal position.
Following I noticed how our collisions were not the best when the player hit a wall, as the plane
would slide and tremble on the hit wall. To solve the issue I designed a bouncing mechanic, that
bounced back the player's plane in the opposite direction from where they hit the wall, which
shortly after, got implemented with its animation.
Moreover, after various playtests, I noticed how the automatic forward movement was giving problems to some of our players when they tried to make precise maneuvers, so later on, I decided to add two buttons, one to speed up and one to slow down the movement speed of our plane, giving more control to the players that desired it.
While designing the movement of our player, I was also keeping in mind our second core mechanic, that being the shooting of our player but also of the game's enemies. For the player, I decided to have two distinct shooting modes, one with a high rate of fire and a low damage output, and the second one being a powerful attack characterized by a slow rate of fire, that zoomed our camera in to take aim and unleash a magical rocket. Each shooting type had its projectile lifetime, speed, reload time, and magazine size. When the shooting of the player was done, I and another designer, started working on the enemies. We wanted to have a good variety of enemy types and behaviours, so we designed 4 different types of enemies, each with its own strenght and weaknesses, and they are:
| Ground Stationary: A ground unit that does not move, in our case, it was the Bigtopus, our game's boss, that spawns after all the enemies are defeated. Being stationary makes it an easy target, but its health points and powerful melee and ranged attacks, make up for that weakness. |  |
| Ground Mobile: The most frequent enemies, the unicorns are ground units that patrol in a set path. When the player enters their range, they start following them and shooting sparkly projectiles.The unicorn patrols vary in size, having both small unicorns with low health points, and bigger mama unicorns that are more resistant to the player's magic. In addition, the unicorns deal low damage with their attacks but they have a unique rate of fire, almost like a laser, making them a threatening unit if not left alone. |  |
| Elevated Stationary: The sharkmeids are non-moving units placed in elevated positions such as desks or tables. When the player enters their range, they shoot a high-speed beam of light from their trident. They have a slow rate of fire but they compensate thanks to their projectile speed and damage. |  |
| Flying Stationary: The teru teru bozu are a flying unit attached to the roof thanks to a rope sustaining them. They also shoot the player as soon as they enter their range, but their attack is different from the rest. The teru teru bozu shoots a projectile that expands after a few seconds, forming a massive bubble that damages everything inside it. In exchange, they have a short range and even though they are flying, they do not move around, as their rope locks them in place. |  |
After the core mechanics were ready, it was time to design how to communicate all those actions to the player. I started with a Health bar for both the player and the enemies, showing their current health. After that, I added visual cues for player damage such as a red outline on the screen, and successively an animation, to communicate it as clearly as possible. Following that, I also wanted to prevent spam shooting in our game, so I designed an overheat system that disabled the player´s shooting if they fired too many bullets in a short amount of time. To convey that without adding an ammo counter, I added a red bar, inside the crosshair to be specific, that was slightly filled every time the player shot a bullet, and emptied if they did not shoot for a few seconds.
The game was supposed to have 5 different rooms for our players to explore, but our vertical slice only had 1 room to show our gameplay. Even so, during playtest we observed how some of our players wanted to compete with each other, trying to complete the level in the fastest way possible. Analyzing that, I decided to add a score system, that gives points to the player on each enemy defeated depending on a multiplier based on playtime. This mechanic, gave a visual way for our players to discover who would have the highest score, moreover, it created retention, improving our replay value, as players would try to improve their score.
For this project I worked closely with the art department to create our game level. We wanted to have a believable space, so, before creating mockups or blockouts, each member of the team sent photos of their room as references. I started analyzing them to see where the furnishings were placed, which were the recurrent items, and how large our environment should be. After having a rough idea, I created the level blockout in engine. As soon as we started playtesting our movement in the scene, we noticed that if the player moved in a straight direction, they would traverse the entirety of the room in less than 10 seconds, and that was an issue.
Game level in its first iteration.
I and the rest of the team liked the movement speed of our character, so the only choice was to make the level bigger. I started looking at references of mansions´ rooms, to then create a new blockout that was 3 times larger when compared to our old level. Then, I divided the new level into 7 different areas, each offering a somewhat unique experience, from safe zones to environmental mazes hiding power-ups and increased enemy encounters. The goal was to provide meaning and pacing in different parts of the room, contributing to an engaging gameplay experience. Moreover, while placing the enemies in the scene, I set the route of all the moving ones using a point to point movement system, and created various spawn points for them, to have kind of different runs everytime the player decided to run the game. Here there are some screens of the level with a description of their features:
| The desk is a large section featuring sharkmeids and many patrolling enemies on the ground near it. It is a dangerous area having the highest amount of enemies per square meter, but it is worth the risk, as inside the desk, behind an environmental maze the strongest powerup lies in wait. |  |
| The wardrobe is a small area located to the right of the desk. It is a relatively safe area as there are only two enemies. This part of the level let players relax and rewards the ones that explore every nook and cranny of the level, as there are two hidden power-ups, one behind the boots inside the wardrobe and the other inside the basketball hoop. | 
|
| On the left of the desk, we can view the window area, hosting multiple types of enemies and showing the shield power-up, which offers a strong buff to the player´s defense but risky to approach without clearing the enemies around it. |  |
| In this last picture we can see the Bunk Bed and our aesthetic final result with the shaders and lighting. |  |
With the core elements in place, I started balancing the stats for the player and the enemies. When we started designing the enemies we wanted them to feel like distinctive units, for this reason, I gave each enemy a unique rate of fire, range, bullet speed, lifetime, and damage. When that was done, I designed how many enemies would spawn during the two game waves and what path they would follow. After that, the game went through many playtest cycles, and I ended up modifying many of the enemies´ stats to reach the desired game feel. During playtest we also noticed how the majority of the players preferred a risky approach when confronting enemies rather than using their range advantage, resulting in soaking in enemy projectiles, leading to game over. Hence, I introduced a mechanic where enemies had a chance to drop healing orbs, that supported this risky playstyle while also helping beginner players survive longer in the level. Moreover, as the designer in charge of balancing, I playtested the game for many hours and worked closely with my group programmers. Like any game, while playtesting I discovered many bugs, so I created a bug tracking document encompassing how to replicate them, their fix priority, and possible solutions.
Throughout this nine-week project, I had the privilege of wearing many hats and contributing to various aspects of our game. Having to step in and help wherever we faced difficulties, I am grateful for the many opportunities to learn and contribute in meaningful ways. Wonder Wings represents a project that I am particularly proud of at this moment in my game design journey, not just for the tasks I accomplished but more so for the successful result of our teamwork and the rewarding journey we navigated together.
Nocturnal is a 2D platformer set in a dark and challenging environment. Tasked with overcoming
deadly trials, the player navigates the shadows, utilizing three distinct abilities to reach
their ultimate goal.
This was my very first group project, and our team was largely comprised of individuals with
limited experience, so we opted for a simple yet impactful concept, a 2D platformer. One of our
key constraints was to use only black and white colors for the majority of the game. Throughout
the development journey, my primary focus revolved around designing and refining core mechanics,
as well as crafting a level with diverse challenges to deliver a gratifying experience to our
players.
4 Weeks Group Project
14 Team Members
Made in Unity
Platforms: PC
Gameplay Design: designed the player's abilities and oversaw the design of the game camera to complement the platforming experience.
Level Design: designed the level and a variety of different obstacles.
System Design: adjusted player stats to align with the game level. Defined the range and timing parameters for moving obstacles, and introduced a beat chart to map the difficulty curve, aiding in identifying and addressing challenges during playtesting.
In the early stages, the group decided on a 2D platformer with the unique twist of abilities acting as keys to specific challenges. As the person in charge of designing these abilities, knowing we lacked animators for this project, I designed simple mechanics that would not require distinctive animations. The finalized abilities included a double jump, a shrinking ability for tight spaces to evade traps, and a phantom creation feature to unlock doors.
As my first level design experience, I started by observing references of Trial & Error platformers such as Limbo and Toby the Secret Mine, and I was also slightly inspired by Hollow Knight´s white palace, as I was playing it at the time. After analyzing those games, I created a legend of assets that I would need for our level. Knowing our game would be set in a dark forest, these included spiky vines, swinging trunks, moving platforms, and moving snail as our enemies. With that ready I started sketching possible platforming challenges that utilized one or a mix of our abilities. When I had a couple dozen of those sketches, I created a mockup of a possible game level and successively whiteboxed it in the engine.
The first development cycle of the game level. Yes, it was pretty hard.
As soon as our abilities were ready, the group started to playtest the level, and here I noticed how the majority of the playtesters struggled to surpass some sections. After collecting feedback, I ended up reworking the level, introducing a tutorial for each ability at the start of the game, lowering the difficulty curve in some areas, and making the jump sections more intuitive.
The final look of the level
After the level was ready, I tweaked the player´s speed and jump height to fit to the game level. I also set the range and timer for the moving platforms, spikes, and trunks. Moreover, as said before, in the game's first playtest the level was too hard for the majority of the players. As a solution, I reworked the level, but to prepare for future playtests I also created a beat chart to map the difficulty curve in each section of the level as a graph. This graph would let me know if I would have to rework other obstacles in certain areas or add safe zones to break the pacing of the level and let players relax for a short while.
Nocturnal stands as a significant milestone in my game design journey, marking my initiation into group projects. It was both a rewarding and challenging experience, offering valuable lessons, for example the importance of adapting a concept to fit the needs or constraints of the group, to obtain the best possible result.
