Portfolio

As the Game Designer for Doomscroller, I:

• Designed and iterated on cooperative gameplay design to encourage simultaneous teamwork and communication between players.
• Refined level layouts and gameplay flow based on recurring playtest feedback to improve pacing, readability, and player engagement.
• Helped balance the asymmetrical gameplay experience between the robot and claw players to ensure both roles felt equally impactful.
• Contributed to onboarding improvements by refining tutorial flow, gameplay readability, and visual communication for new players.
• Collaborated closely with programming and art to align gameplay mechanics, level design, and player experience goals throughout development.

Doomscroller was developed over six months by a five-person team composed of two artists, two developers, and me, the producer and game designer.

To stay organized and efficient, the team used:

• GitHub: Version control and build management
• VICKY: Ideation and concept exploration
• Jira: Task management, sprint tracking, and backlog maintenance
• Discord: Daily standups, communication, and progress updates

Doom Scroller combines the intensity of endless runners with cooperative platforming strategy:

• Asymmetrical Co-Op – Two distinct roles demand teamwork: one player controls the robot escaping danger, while the other manipulates the claw to place platforms and shape the path ahead.
• Dynamic Platforming – The claw can grab, move, and rotate platforms in real time, forcing both players to adapt on the fly to survive.
• Impending Doom – A relentless alien threat constantly pursues the players, creating urgency and ensuring that every misstep feels critical.
• Replayability – Procedural level chunks, varied platform types, and shifting obstacles ensure that no two runs play the same, challenging players to develop rhythm and communication across sessions.

Managing Scope Within a Semester Production Timeline

As development progressed and we became more familiar with our team velocity, it became clear that several planned mechanics and systems would require more iteration time than the semester schedule realistically allowed. Expanding too broadly risked reducing overall polish and jeopardizing milestone stability.

To maintain production focus, I continuously reevaluated the scope and prioritized features that strengthened the core cooperative gameplay experience. I helped shift development toward delivering a polished vertical slice by reducing lower-priority ideas in favor of improving onboarding, controls, level flow, and overall game feel.

This approach allowed the project to maintain a stronger level of polish while still meeting production deadlines.

Improving Asset Pipeline Efficiency

As development progressed, I identified that inconsistent asset sizing and implementation standards were significantly slowing down level construction and creating unnecessary friction between art and level design. Because assets were being created at varying dimensions and scales, integrating them into levels often required manual adjustments and additional iteration time.

To solve this, I redesigned portions of the level workflow around a more structured tile-based system and established clearer rules for asset creation, including standardized sizing, alignment, and implementation guidelines. I also coordinated asset expectations across the art pipeline to ensure new assets were designed with level integration in mind from the start.

These pipeline improvements streamlined the level-building process, reducing the time required to construct and polish levels by several hours while also improving visual consistency throughout the game.

Balancing Cooperative Gameplay Design

One of the largest design challenges during development was ensuring both players remained equally engaged throughout gameplay. Early playtests revealed that players were unintentionally taking turns solving challenges rather than actively collaborating at the same time, which slowed pacing and reduced the intended tension of the experience.

To address this, I helped redesign level chunks and puzzle layouts to encourage simultaneous interaction between both players. I focused on improving the flow of cooperative encounters by pushing for obstacles that required more active communication and coordinated movement between the robot and claw players.

These changes helped reinforce the game’s cooperative identity and created a faster-paced gameplay loop that aligned more closely with the intended player experience.

Refining Claw Controls and Camera Responsiveness

One of the most persistent gameplay challenges involved making the claw controls and camera movement feel intuitive and responsive for players. Early implementations created frustration during playtests and negatively impacted the pacing of platforming sections.

Through ongoing playtesting and iteration, I helped identify usability issues and pushed for simplifying portions of both systems rather than pursuing increasingly complex solutions. By prioritizing responsiveness and player readability, the gameplay experience became significantly smoother and easier for new players to understand.

These refinements improved the overall feel of the cooperative mechanics and contributed to stronger playtest feedback later in development.