Link to the Steam Page - Download and Play the Game for Free!
Embedded Files
Full Gameplay
Full Gameplay
About the Project
About the Project
This is Boxed Up! A "Papers, Please" inspired game about sorting boxes and uncovering the creatures hidden within them.
Quick summary of the project, and my contributions:
Worked in a group of 27 students for our 8 weeks long Collaborative Games Development Module at the University of Staffordshire.
My role was Lead Designer, and I guided 4 other designers, as well as helping to direct the game from a design perspective.
Scheduled and attended meetings, where I would discuss the focus for our sprint, and help people with any blockers they had regarding their set work.
Created and set tasks for my team, and would provide feedback for our deliverables, ensuring that documentation, diagrams, mechanics and systems were clear and without ambiguity, as well as intuitive and accessible.
Communicated with other disciplines, working with them and providing feedback to deliverables regarding design.
Headed the push for rapid prototyping and iteration, which I felt would allow us much needed time to find the fun and still playtest and polish afterwards.
Wrote questions for our playtest questionnaire, and provided an analysis of each playtest from a design perspective.
Project received a mark of 87%, and I recieved 90.75% for my individual contributions.
A portion of the original team, including me, are working to get the game ready for a free Steam release.
For this project I utilized Microsoft Teams and Teams Planner, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Forms, Miro, Unreal Engine 5, and Github.
The game is now released on Steam! The game is free, and the game was released to positive reviews.
Game Design Showcase
Game Design Showcase
I contributed to this project with gameplay design in a variety of ways:
Compiled the Game Design Document (GDD), providing a portion of the design documentation and diagrams within it also.
Acted as a port of call during development, giving approval and feedback to other disciplines on design perspectives, working with several students to develop, iterate, and compromise.
Worked directly with the Tech Design team to create deliverables with a high level of technical specificity, especially so while we were in early stages of development.
Headed the push for quick prototyping while the official GDD was being developed, with a philosophy of proving out fun quickly, and tearing down what didn't work before art assets were developed, which gave us an early prototype with fun elements and enough time to polish it throughout the latter half of our development time.
Lead the push for testing, analysis, and iteration, in a method that followed agile workflow and methodology, setting up meetings and discussing goals for the team each week.
Leadership and Communication
Leadership and communication skills were my priority for this project. I wanted to prove to myself that I was confident enough in my skills as a designer to provide direction and feedback to others.
I contributed to leadership and communication in the following ways:
I developed a plan that followed agile workflow and methodology, informed by my time at Sumo Digital.
Regularly scheduled meetings, and worked with individuals to make sure everyone could attend.
Used weekly meetings to discuss our team's goals for the week.
Created a backlog of tasks that designers would assign to themselves, which allowed people to explore the facets of design that interested them. This worked well, as we quickly found our design team had a wide net of interests.
Gave individuals in the design team a platform to showcase what they were working on.
Discussed any blockers individuals were experiencing, with the intent to work through and eliminate any blockers.
Regularly spoke with students of other disciplines, acting as a port of call.
Gave feedback from a design perspective to Concept / 2D Art, 3D Art, Animation, and Tech Design. Worked to listen and compromise when concerns were voiced.
Provided updates to progress on design directives, and provided clarifications on what design needed implemented through the creation of documents at request of other students.
Level Design
I contributed to this project with level design in the following ways:
created a level blockout using primitive shapes with a focus on metrics and ease of control. This was especially important because the gameplay of Boxed Up did not follow conventional movement.
Helped to develop solutions to level design problems that were informed by playtests, such as discussing the replacement of clunky box controls with contextual awareness to improve the intuitiveness of the level layout and the gameplay involved.
Communicated with the Art team, who used the blockout as a guide for 3D modelling metrics, and populated the level with assets.
Gameplay Trailer
Gameplay Trailer
Downloads
Downloads
Page updated
Report abuse