Introduction
At Sharkmob, I was a member of the player and combat team. This was a collaborative environment where I participated in discussions on core combat systems and the moment-to-moment gameplay experience: everything from weapons to traversal. I designed dozens of abilities and helped to shape differentiated roles for the game's Exo-Rigs as they underwent a major revision. I expanded the game's roster of enemies with two NPCs to challenge players on new axes, and I was a feature owner on damage feedback, ensuring that players got the information they needed quickly and precisely. Read on to learn more.
Quick Overview
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Exo-Rigs: created dozens of abilities and modules
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AI: created new NPC archetypes
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Damage Feedback: feature owner
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Combat: Participated in defining core systems and vision
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Co-development: led communication and design documentation
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UR testing: preparation, documentation and re-iteration​​

Tactical Open-World Extraction Shooter
Abilities

On Exoborne I was responsible for a few dozen Exo-Rig abilities and modifications. This meant:
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Designing them to have meaningful differences that players could easily parse.
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Prototyping abilities with Blueprints
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Balancing them against each other and against weapons.
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Collaborating with VFX and SFX to ensure that threats were properly signalled
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Tweaking based on internal and external feedback.
Enemies
I was also a member of the NPC team. Along with refining the current NPCs, I worked on designs for NPCs not yet in the game. I:
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Analyzed the current range of NPCs, identifying where a meaningful addition could be made
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Wrote a design describing the NPC's combat role, detailing the expected combat flow and work needed from content teams
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Created a prototype with unique mechanics with behavior trees and blueprints
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Incorporated senior feedback to give NPCs identifiable rhythm, anticipation and recovery


Damage Feedback


As feature owner on damage feedback, I:
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Researched the field of AAA multiplayer action shooters, to land on a solution that
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Precisely shows the impact of loadout and
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Surfaces the interactions of damage types and resistances
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While remaining unobtrusive by
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Precisely documenting the implementation of damage numbers and
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Collaborating on their implementation with co-development partners.
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Fine-tuning size, color, decay and position