Game Design
On this page you will find a selection of the projects that I have done Game Design work for. This includes both physical and digital games. If there are any supporting documents available for the project then it will be included through a download link next to the appropriate text box.
Rider Worlds - Mobile Game Design
By: ChimpWorks
Role: Game Designer
“Welcome to the long-awaited sequel to the legendary Rider game (150 millions downloads worldwide)! Feast your eyes with brand new 3D graphics, and unleash your riding skills throughout the unique Worlds of Rider Worlds!”
Rider Worlds is the sequel to the popular mobile game Rider and has a very similar gameplay loop. Having you control a bike to trick and flip your way through randomly generated runs using a hold-and-release control scheme.
Having joined the project during early prototyping, I (together with 4 other designers) was responsible for the design of every aspect of the game with a different focus depending on the stage of development. During early development I worked on broad system design, creating a general economy set up and ensuring a good game feel and balance throughout the experience.
Later, during full production, I contributed further to the meta system design and focused mainly on content production. Creating both independent levels (a feature sadly cut from the final game) and level chunks for use in the generation of the endless runs. Creating a smooth workflow from initial level ideation and protoypin, to implementation and iteration thorugh playtesting. This level design work continued post-launch as we worked on creating new gameplay content for players to explore
Store Links:
Rider - Mobile Game Live Support
By: ChimpWorks
Role: Game Designer
“Get ready for some flippin’ action! Perform insane stunts while you cruise through the never-ending world of Rider! Grab your motorcycle and start flipping like a maniac!”
Rider is a simple, yet challenging casual game available for Android and iOS. In it, the player controls a vehicle as they navigate through a randomly sequenced set of levels, using a hold-and-release control scheme, to try and set a high score.
This game has been live since 2017 and has maintained a sizeable player base since then, recently having reached 150 million total downloads. For around 9 months I was responsible for most design related tasks on this project. This included the design and creation of new LiveOps features and systems, as well as providing support during a port of the game from an older engine to the Unity game engine. This meant that I was responsible for many different aspects of design, including gameplay, system, liveops, and level design.
As new features were being tested I was also in charge of keeping an eye on, gathering, and interpreting data through GameAnalytics. This led to a ‘data-inspired’ design process, where qualitative research into competitors was used to inspire new feature designs. These designs were then tested on a small section of the playerbase, after which the quantitative data gathered from that test was used to iterate on the feature to maximise the positive effect of the feature on the game.
Store Links:
Paladin Princess - GMTK Game Jam 2023
By: Wouter van Vugt, Pavel Stoimenov, Roy Wilmer
Role: Game Designer, Sound Designer
“Princess Paladin, a dungeon crawler where you are the companion!”
Created for the GMTK game Jam 2023 (and featured in the top 20 out of 5000 submissions in the “Best Games of the Jam” video), Princess Paladin is a game in which the player fills the role of the companion instead of the hero as your princess works their way through endless enemies. You are in charge of supplying the princess with weapons and health, managing the resources of health and durability to try and keep both yourself and the princess alive as long as possible.
I was in charge of general game design and planning at the start of the jam. Switching to creating/finding and implementing sound and music as time progressed, also supporting both art and programming through UI and control implementation, allowing them to focus on more core aspects of their craft.
Itch.io link:
Tony Bar: Soap Skater - GMTK Game Jam 2024
By: Roy Wilmer, Jonne Geven, Thijs Bouwhuis and Lizzy Wilmer
Role: Game Designer, Sound Designer
“Your bathroom has become so dirty and your soap can’t bear it anymore! Slide around the room and find all the dirtiest spots to clean, but your soap is not endless.”
Created for the GMTK game Jam 2024, Tony Bar: Soap Skater is a game in which you play as a bar of soap and you slide around in an attempt to clean all the dirt in the bathroom. As you slide around you will become smaller and smaller as you leave a soapy trail. This means you have limited time, but your smaller size will allow you to access different areas.
For this game jam I fulfilled the role of Game Designer, hosting the ideation brainstorm and then solidifying the idea into tasks the others could work on. Then I balanced the movement system and designed the level and a basic soundscape over the following days.
Working within only four days, with an unfamiliar team and an unfamiliar engine was certainly a challenge, but it taught me a lot about managing a team (half the team became ill halfway through the jam, so adjusting the planning to account for that was a difficult but rewarding task) and greatly improved my scripting skills.
Itch.io link:
Rapid Prototypes - Mobile Game Design
By: Chimpworks
Role: Game Designer
“A collection of prototypes that I was a part of creating”
For about 5 months while working at ChimpWorks the company was rapidly creating prototypes and market testing them to see what projects would be worth further developing.
This process took about two weeks in which I, along with one artist and one developer, had to ideate, pitch, prototype, playtest iterate and test the game in the store. During these initial two weeks I would be sole designer on these projects and would be responsible for all aspects of the Game Design for them.
If the prototype met certain predetermined metrics it would receive another two weeks of development. If not, we would move on to the next idea. Seven of these prototypes are shown in the video
Sadly these prototypes are no longer available on the Play Store
Fall of the Dark Lens - A FATE 2.0 adventure
“Fall of the Dark Lens will take players through the city of Lunalae in an attempt to find out the truth behind some rumours of ‘suspicious activity’ within its walls. The adventure will need the players to interact with their environment, the people that inhabit them, and each other to deduce what’s happening and how to deal with it.“
The Fall of the Dark Lens is a tabletop RPG adventure that builds upon the FATE 2.0 game system to create a relatively short adventure where players must use their deductive and combat skills to bring this story to a close.
Using the world of Aurelion as a base (See the World Building section) I adapted the Tabletop Role Playing system FATE 2.0 to create an interactive story to play through. To fully explore what Aurelion has to offer I slightly changed a few things about FATE and added my own twist to the magic system.
The general combat system was changed to use different combat tables depending on what NPC was being fought. This usually results in longer fights and more opportunity to make the fights interesting. It also makes combat a little less reliant on single dice rolls, which makes the combat experience a bit more consistent.
To create a magic system that fits the setting I introduced an Insanity mechanic, whereby magic is very powerful but characters that use a lot of magic would be negatively affected by it down the line. This has created some interesting moments where players weigh the risk of going insane against the reward that magic offers. In the games that I have used this system it has been positively received and as it continues to see use I will continue to expand and balance it appropriately.
Overall, writing this adventure out in such a format was a good challenge. Trying to provide all the necessary information for a 4-8 hour long game while trying not to go too deep into any particular lore/mechanic has proven to be quite the creative and linguistic challenge.
Scarecrow Haunt - Board game
“A rural village is being haunted by spirits. A malicious ghost has possessed the scarecrows in the fields and has been killing farmhands. Four villagers take it upon themselves to remove these ghosts from their field. But there is a problem, all the scarecrows look the same. When the villagers aren’t looking some of the scarecrows slowly inch towards them. In this board game based around tactics and manipulation, the villagers must work together to see through the game of deception played by the ghost and take it down before the hunters become the hunted.“
Scarecrow Haunt is a board game that I designed in the first year of my studies at the Breda University of Applied Sciences.
It was an interesting project that touched on a lot of the cornerstones of game design. Rapid prototyping, lots of playtesting, and improving the player experience through feedback were all brought up throughout the project. The lessons I learned with this project all continued to be applied throughout my studies in Breda.
After finishing that project I had continued to make some iterations of the rulebook and, after replacing the artwork with some royalty free silhouettes, have created a package that will allow anyone to play it after printing out the board and pieces (It is advised to reinforce/weigh down the pieces as using the folded paper pieces are too light).
