Peblito: Rock and Roll

Overview

Peblito: Rock and Roll is a 3D platformer that I am developing as a member of Studio Half-, a team of fellow graduate students at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy and undergraduates from the University of Central Florida. The game follows Peblito, a young pebble on a rite of passage, and his unexpected journey into the depths of the island volcano. Luckily for our protagonist, he is rather nimble and can dash, burst, vine whip, and roll his way through the volatile subterranean environs. Below is our latest gameplay demo.

Role: Design Lead

Team Size: 17

Game Engine: UE4

Responsibilities and Contributions

Design Lead

As the team’s design lead, I am responsible for providing the design framework that guides the game’s mechanics, narrative, tone, and audio. One of my first tasks in this role was to craft the game design document to provide this foundation, ensuring a realistic scope given our team makeup and limited production cycle. You can view the original design document here.

In addition, I manage the team’s technical, level, and audio designers and serve as the primary contact between the design team and the programming and art teams. Much of my work in this role involves ensuring the consistency of the game experience and organizing joint efforts to solve development problems. This includes writing design documentation, task evaluation and feedback, and maintaining the design team’s hour estimates and production timeline. I also report to the project lead and work with them to set monthly design goals that we consistently compare with the project schedule to ensure timely production and mange scope.

I also spearhead the team’s data-driven design efforts using competitor analysis, gameplay metrics, and playtest data to tune players’ in-game experience. Much of this work involves distilling spreadsheet data into tangible action items which I then sort by relevant department and provide to team members for implementation. I also produce game-wide reports, such as difficulty charts, to visualize players’ experience and compare it with the intended experience we are aiming to produce.

Here are two examples of the type of information I gathered from competitor analysis. These charts depict difficulty by challenge number. Difficulty level was measured using a qualitative difficulty scale I created (difficulty of 0 meant the player cleared the challenge with no deaths, 1 meant one or two deaths, 2 meant three or four deaths, and so on) and was validated through several playthrough videos.

I referenced these charts and our playtest data when sorting our action blocks amongst our three levels. That way we could take insights from successful platformers and make informed decisions regarding when to present the game’s most difficult challenges to the player.

Likewise, I drew inspiration from competitors in regards to structuring the rolling sections of the game. The speed sections in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and the chase scenes in Crash Bandicoot 4 were particularly helpful in this effort. One of our main concerns was that the player would have to quickly navigate challenges in a newly introduced movement mode. The information I gathered from these sources guided our construction of the rolling such that we gave the player a balanced mix of scaffolding and challenge.

Collectibles

Another contribution of mine are the game’s collectibles. I scripted these in Blueprints and wrote the C++ functions to integrate them into the respawn system created by our programmers. I emulated a simple animation in Blueprints by making the collectibles spin in place, bob up and down, and being drawn to the character on contact. I also integrated these Blueprints with the game instance and user interface to track the number of collectibles gathered and display it to the player.

Collectibles Demo