• Platform: Android

• Development Period: September 2022 — May 2023

• My Roles: Narrative Designer, Systems Designer, UI Designer, Producer

Arcanima is a real-time singleplayer isometric puzzle game with narrative elements, in which the player assumes the role of a mysterious character trapped in a whimsical tarot-themed world. Divided into several distinct regions themed after disparate aspects of tarot — such as the minor arcana suits, cultural associations, and even emotional states — the player must navigate a variety of short grid-based levels with novel puzzle mechanics. In doing so, the player is enabled to discover the narrative underscoring the game’s atmosphere and environment.

Documentation

Across both semesters of development I created and maintained the majority of design documentation, most notably the Game Design Document and Narrative Bible. The Google Suite provided an extremely convenient platform for sharing a wide variety of team content, so Docs (for general use), Sheets (for writing dialogue), and even Jamboard (for planning and brainstorming) saw significant use. Until our team size was doubled in the second semester, my domain even extended to reviewing and revising production documentation such as sprint reports or the Business Document.

Narrative Design

Arcanima is the most ambitious instance of narrative I have worked on during my time at Champlain College. Having had two narrative-focused designers on the team from the start (and a third in the second semester), the writing was on the wall for some sort of narrative focus. During the first semester, I worked with the rest of the design team to develop concepts for what shape that story could take, recording our thoughts on Jamboards and notes documents that would one day become the Narrative Bible. Building off the tarot theming provided us with a solid foundation, and during the first semester we deliberated over how to implement the storyline we devised. While we initially settled for short pieces of dialogue between levels, this method was too subtle and disconnected from the rest of the game. The next semester, the design team and I established an NPC mechanic, which would provide a much more engaging and immersive platform to communicate story through. The NPCs each had multiple lines of dialogue, which could were initially written and revised in a Google Sheets Document.

Systems Design

From the start, I worked with the rest of the team to extensively brainstorm and prototype the game systems that Arcanima is composed of today. A detailed list of the mechanics I've had a hand in can be seen in the Game Design Document. Near the start of the second semester, I proposed and pushed for the Inversion mechanic, a state change that, when used, affects the current level in different ways, such as swapping the player with their shadow doppelganger, changing which objects are pushable and which are not, and altering the player's very movement dramatically in a specific world. I thought this mechanic had great potential because of its versatility — lending emergent complexity to the level design of both of the worlds and a wide variety of mechanics — and its relevance to tarot, with an "inverted" orientation of a card having a different meaning.

Testing

On a weekly basis, I met with my team to discuss what should go into the testing form for that week, and draft according questions for it. On a semi-regular basis, I would also manage testing myself. Therein, I had to succinctly explain the game to testers, address any technical issues they ran into, and make myself available to them in case of such problems. On more than one occasion, I had to run testing alone, and juggle multiple testers at once.

UI Design

As a mobile game, UI was an especially notable design/art concern for Arcanima. As the de-facto UI designer, it fell to me to work with the art team in order to make the experience flow cleanly and intuitively. Over the course of both semesters, I created and iterated upon UI Wireframes using Adobe XD. Mobile games have specific needs and quirks when it comes to interface, so I was careful to consider button placement with regard to how the player would likely be holding their phone. I also planned out what would become the bulk of tutorial information the player would receive: icons such as circles and arrows that would be distributed among certain level or UI objects to explain their functions. A more detailed explanation can be found in the short Briefing Document I used to explain the concept to the art team.