Technical & Gameplay Design:
Contributed to over 25 content updates.

Designed and implemented Quests using the company in-house tool.

Blueprinting for interactables, NPCs and quest objects.

Setting up items and currency descriptions, spawn points, rarity and placement in the world.

Level Streaming with Data Layer and World Partition Subsystem to optimize performances and loading times.

Localization pipeline setup and implementation to translate all game chapters.

Equinox: Homecoming launched in Early Access on May 8, 2025. We kept building on the game with monthly updates, adding new in-game chapters with quests and cinematics, alongside new horse breeds for players to discover. After these continuous updates, version 1.0 launched on March 5, 2026.

I worked on over 25 updates for Equinox, bringing new content into the game. This included implementing quests, setting up NPCs and their clothing, creating items and currencies, writing their in-game descriptions, and placing them throughout the world.

A large part of my technical design work involved creating Blueprints for interactable assets and quest objects.

These Blueprints allowed objects in the world to communicate with the quest system and perform specific actions when interacted with. This was particularly important for creating quests that were driven by the player's interactions with the environment rather than only through traditional UI elements.

I focused on making these objects reusable and easy to configure, allowing different quest objects to share common behaviours while still exposing the variables needed for individual interactions.

I worked on setting up item and currency spawn points across the world, deciding what should spawn, where it should spawn, and how rare each reward should be.

A big part of this was making sure the placement made sense within the world. Rewards needed to encourage players to explore without making them feel like they were everywhere.

This gave me the opportunity to experience the more systemic side of level design, where reward distribution, world exploration, and player progression need to work together.

Equinox: Homecoming features large environments that require careful management of the content loaded at any given time.

I worked with Unreal Engine 5's Data Layer Subsystem to organize and control level content. Data Layers allowed us to separate different versions and states of the world and control which content was active depending on the current gameplay situation.

I used this system to help manage what was loaded and visible in different parts of the game, contributing to better performance and loading times while keeping the levels manageable for the team.

A good example of this was when we added interiors to the buildings in the town. Having all of the interiors loaded at the same time caused a noticeable performance drop, especially when the player was moving around the city.

To solve this, I set up a separate Data Layer for each building interior. Instead of keeping every interior loaded, the relevant Data Layer would only be activated when the player got close to that building's entrance. Once the player moved away, the interior could be unloaded again.

This significantly reduced the amount of content being loaded around the town and improved performance while exploring the area.

I worked on setting up and implementing the localization pipeline for over 150,000 words, with new text arriving every week as the game continued to receive updates. To put that into perspective, that’s approaching the length of The Fellowship of the Ring, at roughly 180,000 words.

At that scale, a consistent, repeatable workflow was essential. I integrated localization into our development process so translated content could be brought into each chapter across the different languages supported by the project, paying close attention to how text was structured and referenced so updates wouldn’t break quest progression or gameplay interactions.

The pipeline made the process more predictable for the team and reduced the manual work involved in adding and updating translations, helping us keep up with a game that kept growing.

Technical & Gameplay Design:
Implemented the multiplayer replication for all mechanics.

Designed & implemented the players' combat using Blueprints.

Created tools for the art team for level dressing.

System Design:
Adapted player combat to simulate slingshots.

Improved player death feedback.

Balanced player stats such as movement speed, bullet damage, range, cooldown.

In this project, my main goal was to ensure that all gameplay mechanics, especially combat, functioned seamlessly in a multiplayer environment.

The first challenge of the project was to learn what Replication was and how it worked in Unreal. No one in the team had any experience with a multiplayer project, so we all started by watching tutorials and documentation regarding Unreal Replication. Once we knew enough regarding replicated variables and Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs), we started implementing our mechanics.

We began with a lot of trial and error, playtesting in a group to see whether the mechanics were correctly replicated across clients. Initially, it was a learning curve, but once we got the hang of it, the process became much more efficient. Using Blueprints for most of the gameplay mechanics also helped streamline replication, by simply enabling the Replicates checkbox in the class defaults, Unreal Engine handled much of the underlying work for us.

Using Blueprints, I implemented various tools focused on making my artists job easier to dress up our levels.

I focused on making these system designer-friendly, or in this case art-friendly, exposing variables and enabling other team members to easily tweak behaviour or values without digging into complex systems.

The first tool was a random and non asset spawner, with customizable parameters like speed, direction, and rotation. We primarily used it to populate background clutter and add variety to our scenes.

The second tool was a magical floating effect Blueprint that made selected assets levitate and rotate gently. This gave the environment a more dynamic and enchanted feel. The parameters such as float distance and rotation speed were fully adjustable. I also used this tool to animate tutorial elements in the player lobby.

One of the more complex tools I built addressed a specific challenge in our player lobby. We wanted the lobby to feel like part of the game world, immersive and free of traditional UI, but still allow players to select their character and color. To achieve this, I implemented a sort of diegetic UI blueprint where players could shoot at magic mirrors and canvases to cycle through available options. This required tracking which player fired the shot, retrieving their current character and color indexes, and updating the correct array based on whether they hit the mirror or canvas.

Finally, to start the game without on-screen buttons, I also created a diegetic ready-up system. Players stand on gems embedded in the lobby floor to signal they are ready. Once all players are ready, a Blueprint spawns a black hole that pulls them into a portal, transitioning them into a random level.

Combat Design:
Designed three unique player attacks.

Designed three enemy types and assisted in their implemententation using Unreal Behavior Trees.

Designed a lock-on system to direct player's attacks towards the closest enemy.

Implemented a Hack & Slash Style System that dynamically changes the game's music.

System Design:
Balanced player and enemy stats such as damage, range, knockback and cooldown.

Designed a wave manager to spawn enemies in arenas.

General Game Design:
Designed the game camera and controls.

Created an asset list, organized meetings, and pitched the game presentations.

Implemented UI, VFXs and sounds in game, using unreal blueprints, animation notifies and sound cues.

Implemented all the vibrations used for the haptics of the PS5 controller.

Created a bug list document to keep track of issues and fix them following their priority.

For the combat design, I started this task by researching and studying the enemy design of my main references Hifi Rush and Devil May Cry 5.
The first challenge was how to design a fun, fast-paced combat while maintaining the identity of the game, meaning all combat would happen while riding a rocket.

So, I came up with three unique attacks that used the player's rocket in different ways (Swirl, Slam, and Barrage) and included a boost ability, used to disengage enemies or perform platforming.

Then, to reach our intended experience, I decided on some key elements:

• Constant Player Movement: The player's rocket is always in motion, forcing them to think and react quickly during combat. This continuous forward momentum keeps the gameplay fast-paced and maintain players engaged.

• Animation Montages: Having only one animator, we used animation montages for attacks, to speed up production, as this approach eliminated the need for blending animations.

• Attack Commitment: Attacks cannot be interrupted by other inputs, except movement, or the current animation montage would be disrupted. Started as a setback, but ended adding depth to the combat, rewarding strategic decision-making.

The light attack or Rocket Swirl is intended to be the main choice through the game. It executes quickly, causes little damage, and can be chained into a three-hit combo when used in rapid succession. Each consecutive strike within the combo deals bonus damage.

In the first iteration, the attack stopped the player's movement. However, after playtesting, I reworked it into a dashing attack that locks onto the target. This adjustment not only complemented the game’s fast-paced nature but also added a strategic element, allowing players to use the attack for both offense and repositioning.

The Rocket Slam takes longer to execute but creates a powerful Area Of Effect (AOE) explosion, dealing massive damage. This design follows the risk-reward principle, requiring precise timing for maximum payoff.

During playtesting, I observed that players mainly used this ability while in combat. To balance its power, I introduced a cooldown to it, ensuring that its use remained strategic and didn't overshadow other combat mechanics.

The Rocket Barrage is a ranged attack and a resource sink. It consumes Scrap to shoot a burst of missiles from the player's back, the more Scrap spent the more the missiles. Although it deals low damage, it is useful for poking enemies and maintaining Style Points.

After the attacks were done, during playtests, I noticed some players struggled to land hits with the Swirl attack due to the constant forward movement of the player's rocket.

To address this, I designed a lock-on system that guides the player's attacks toward the nearest enemy or the center of the camera.
The Barrage also relies on this system, and can only be executed when an enemy is locked on.

Then, I implemented through Blueprints a visual widget to highlight the locked-on target, providing clear feedback to the player. This solution drastically improved the combat experience, making it more intuitive and accessible.

The blueprint checks if an enemy is inside the locking range. When they are, it renders the health bar and targeting widgets. As soon as the enemy is outside locking range it sets the visibility of the widgets as false.

Like many Hack & Slash, our game needed a Style System to boost the player's excitement as they landed consecutive hits on enemies without taking damage.
I designed multiple style levels, ranging from D to S and culminating in R: RocketTastic.

Then, I created a custom event that gets called every time the style level changes. I used this event to play unique sounds and dynamically amplify the game’s music as players reached higher style levels.

Then I implemented the UI elements to display the current style rank.
In a future iteration, I desire to multiply the resource gains based on the style points obtained during combat, further rewarding skillful play.

As the gameplay and system designer, I needed to be able to tweak various key elements such as damage values, speed, and so on.

Working with the programmers we developed various components to quickly visualize and access the required stats within the Engine.

These tools enabled me to tweak damage, hitbox size, knockback, and so on, for each attack. We applied the same approach to enemies so that I could easily balance their health points, movement speed, and other critical stats.

With our combo system, we had to find a visual way to tell when an attack animation was done so we could kick off the next one.

Collaborating with my programmers, we designed a method to tweak animation keyframes for different phases.

For instance, PlayerSwirl spawns the attack Hitbox, which deals damage and limits player inputs to movement only, while PlayerSwirlFinish disables damage, lets all inputs back in and creates a time window to continue the combo.

I also took advantage of animation notifies to add sounds and VFX at the right keyframes for each animation.

During the project, I dived into Unreal Engine 5's AI framework (AI Controller, Behavior Tree, and Blackboard) to help the programmers prototype and implementing the AI. After consulting the programmers, I created three enemy types, one being a boss enemy, and used flowcharts to communicate their behaviors to the team. Furthermore, I was in charge of implementing all the VFXs and sounds for each enemy.

The first enemy, Goro, is a slow but powerful melee unit with moderate health.
It delivers heavy, slow punches and will constantly attempt to close the distance to engage the player in close combat. If the player is too far away or unreachable, Goro will perform a Jump attack to quickly cover ground and strike.

Moreover, considering the game's setting, I wanted to emphasize the enemies' cooperation, as from a narrative point of view, they are both part of the enforcers controlling the city. For instance, Goros will guard and protect the second enemy type, the Beedrone, while it charges its attack, highlighting their role as a unified force in maintaining order.

The Beedrone is a swift but fragile ranged enemy whose primary role is to fire at the player, forcing them to stay mobile. Its attacks are designed to keep the player on their toes, reinforcing the game’s emphasis on constant movement.

For the game’s boss fight, the team designed a variety of attacks for the boss to use.

Once the programmers implemented these attacks, my role was to build the boss phases using Unreal Behavior Trees.

Using my custom nodes, I adjusted the number, speed, and timing between attacks to establish a rhythmic flow to the fight.

After each phase, I introduced new attacks and reduced the dodge window to progressively increase the difficulty and challenge the player.

Character

Designing the movement for this game was a big challenge, as we did not have a clear direction or reference at the start of the project. The Overrider demo came out during the development, which was an optimal reference for some aspects.

Given the premise of riding a rocket and engaging multiple enemies, I opted for an automatic forward movement with a high movement speed and the use of a lerp for rotation to avoid quick turns, simulating a more realistic rocket maneuver.

After that, I needed to consider what would happen if the player´s rocket was destroyed, so I added a basic movement for the character when grounded.
During playtesting, the team realized that being grounded and simply waiting for the rocket to respawn was tedious. To address this, we experimented with various solutions, such as providing the player additional mechanics while grounded, like using stun grenades or engaging in precise platforming.

However, we ultimately decided to eliminate ground movement, as it slowed the game's pacing too much. Our focus was on maintaining a fast-paced rocket-riding experience.

Camera

For the camera, I took inspiration from Devil May Cry 5 and Hi-Fi Rush, making key design choices that significantly influenced the gameplay experience:

• Close Third-Person Perspective: Opting for a close third-person view immerses the player in the game world while maintaining clear visibility of the surrounding environment around the character.

• Dynamic Camera: The camera adapts fluidly to the player's movement. When the player is in motion, it pulls back slightly, providing a broader field of view and better spatial awareness. When the player stops, the camera moves in closer, heightening the sensation of speed and intensity during high-action moments.

• Independent Rotation: Players can rotate the camera freely with input controls, allowing them to move in one direction while looking in another. This offers great flexibility in combat and exploration.

Controls

I mapped the light attack, Rocket Swirl, to the right trigger and Square, following the conventions of many hack-and-slash games. Lock-on was assigned to the left trigger, while movement boost was placed on both bumpers for quick and intuitive access. Special attacks were triggered using Triangle and Circle, while X served as the standard jump button.

I implemented dynamic vibration feedback on the controller, varying the intensity and pattern based on the player's actions. Each attack, boost, and railgrind triggers a unique vibration response, providing tactile feedback to the player.

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 rooms 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.

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 examples of the level areas 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.

The window area, located on the left of the desk, hosts multiple types of enemies and shows in clear sight the shield power-up, which offers a strong buff to the player´s defense but it is 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.