WAY HOME

wayhome 720.mp4

2D 3rd Person, Single-Player, Side-Scroller, Adventure, Puzzle Game

GameMaker Studio 2 · Windows

Team of 16 · 2 Weeks · 2024

Prototype

DESIGN

PRODUCTION

In "Way Home” players role-play as the spirit of a child crossing an ancient Chinese battlefield, using their ghostly properties to overcome a series of challenges, becoming a ghost who does more to help the livings, eventually saving their sick mother by obtaining a magical herb while bringing peace to the world. Throughout the game, players gradually uncover clues revealing that their character is actually dead from the beginning, ultimately realizing they have been playing as the child’s spirit.

DESIGN

Related Softwares:

GameMaker Studio 2 for building the prototype.
GitHub for source control and collaborative code management.
Procreate for sketching level layouts and concepts.
Pages / Word for design documentation.

Experiences:

Presented the initial game pitch, leading the project concept from its earliest stage.
Passed two rounds of pitch selection, advancing Way Home to the prototyping phase.
Designed the core gameplay loop, ensuring engaging player interactions.
Developed core systems that underpin the game’s mechanics.
Conceived game mechanics, shaping the foundational rules of play.
Paper-designed a prototype level, guided by storyboards to visualize narrative and gameplay flow.
Further iterated the game based on feedback from the playtest.

Challenges & Solutions:

At the start of the first sprint, we aimed to test the core mechanics—such as shifting ghost stages—hoping the game could be enjoyable without relying heavily on narrative elements. Our assumption was that the core mechanics alone should sustain player engagement. However, Way Home is inherently a narrative-focused game; by stripping away key story moments, playtesters found the experience “meaningless.” They lacked clear motivation to play, leading to feedback that the game felt boring. Despite the functional mechanics, the absence of narrative context ultimately undercut engagement.

Recognizing our misstep, we secured the functionality of our mechanics in the first sprint and then shifted focus to integrating dramatic narrative moments into the prototype level. This approach showcased the game’s true objectives, illustrating how narrative and mechanics enhance one another. For instance, players were forced to flee from threatening enemies, leveraging “ghostly” properties to escape—only to land in yet another perilous situation. While this method improved the overall experience, we failed to communicate the significance of switching between different ghost stages, causing the game to ultimately fall short of securing a greenlight for full production. Despite this, we gained valuable insights into aligning mechanics with narrative to maintain player engagement.

Prototype PowerPoint:

Way Home Industry Panel Presentation.pdf

Level Design:

PRODUCTION

Related Softwares:

Discord for team communication and coordination.
Google Slides for presentations and documentation.
Trello for assignment backlog.

Experiences:

Led a 16-person team using Scrum methodology in a fast-paced development environment.
Established clear, written role expectations to ensure transparency and maintain supportive accountability.
Developed a team management structure by organizing members into separate departments (Art, Design, Engineering).
Integrated Narrative, Gameplay, and Level Design into a single department, enabling a cohesive partnership between these roles and ensuring a more efficient test/fail/pass cycle.
Built collaborative workflows at the department level based on the established management structure.
Organized general meetings to onboard team members.
Held weekly stand-ups to synchronize development progress, plan sprints, and conduct retrospectives.
Set and refined development objectives for each sprint, including analyzing playtest feedback and updating goals accordingly.
Presented at an industry panel Greenlight session, showcasing the project’s progress.
Fostered communication and collaboration among multidisciplinary teams to streamline workflows.

Challenges & Solutions:

During the first week, we struggled to fully utilize all 16 team members. While we spent considerable time onboarding everyone to the concept of Way Home, we devoted less effort to assigning specific tasks with clear deadlines. This imbalance led to a few passionate members working more than 12 hours per week, while others had little to do—ultimately causing underperformance in the first sprint. Expectations were often passive, ambiguous, and unclear.

We addressed this by creating a task backlog using Trello for each department and breaking tasks down into highly specific to-dos. Each member was then able to self-assign tasks that aligned with their skills, with department leads overseeing progress. As a result, the team made significant improvements in the second sprint, completing substantially more work and transforming the overall direction of the game.

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