Bob Wu
Technical Combat Designer
Bloompunk
December 2021 - May 2023
Bloompunk is a first-person shooter rogue-like set in a luscious world of plant life where you must grow a living arsenal of abilities to fight back against an invasive technological corruption that is slowly taking over the forest. Players can enhance their bodies with special abilities and powerful upgrades in this action-packed, chaotic frenzy of bullets and thorns. This project is developed in Unity as an AGP project at USC with a team of over 30.
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Role: Designer
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Summary:​
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Designed the enemy hierarchy and their behaviors to maintain a fast pace while keeping the experience balanced.
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Iterated on enemies, spawn points, level layout, and level objectives to create an immersive experience and reduce scope.
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Drafted various documents and spreadsheets to collaborate with engineers, designers, and artists more efficiently.
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Prototyped diverse enemy types and boss mechanics during early production to aid combat design decisions.
Details Below:
Enemy Design and Iteration
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Designed melee self-exploding chasers, ranged snipers, spawners, and elite chasers to form the enemy hierarchy that creates the desired pace of the game.
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Cut elite chasers due to scope concerns and iterated on other enemies to achieve the same design goal.
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Designed melee chasers' group behavior and snipers' line-of-sight mechanics and worked with engineers on their implementation.
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Balanced enemy stats, level objectives, spawn position, and level layout to create a fun combat experience.
Documentation
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Drafted the enemy section of the GDD.
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Documented spreadsheets for enemy damage, health, and combat difficulty to support the balancing process.
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Created a document for general AI with detailed descriptions of specific enemy behaviors and mechanics.
Rapid Prototype
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Prototyped various enemy types including a regular chaser, charger, and spawner during early production to help clarify design directions.
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Prototyped the boss fight and unique boss mechanics to aid scope assessment.
Gallery
