Bugnauts!

April 2023 - Present

Role: Lead Designer

Bugnauts! is a single-player third-person action game that mixes accessible 3D projectile gameplay with environmental education. Players play as Chloe, a young aspiring entomologist who must use her bug net to defeat the giant Phantom Bugs that have overtaken the island she calls home. Bugnauts! is an ongoing project being developed in Unreal Engine 5 as a capstone project at USC.

Summary:

Oversaw a team of 4 designers and collaborated with a team of 30+ to develop Bugnauts!

Collaborated closely with the director in forming the creative vision, gameplay systems, and level layouts during pre-production while maintaining detailed documentation to ensure a clear direction for the team.

Designed the Environment Restoration system that impacts level layout while pushing narrative elements into gameplay.

Designed and blocked out the level with 4 unique areas and collaborated with a multidisciplinary team to iterate on the level design around production, art, usability, and engineering constraints.

Implemented and tuned character controller and animation state machine to deliver a responsive experience to match the fast-paced combat.

Collaborated cross-functionally to design and implement enemy mechanics, AI behaviors, animation blueprints and behavior tree nodes.

Drafted and maintained GDD and 10+ design documents to achieve a unified vision and guide other disciplines.

Environment Restoration

Designed the environmental restoration system that gradually changes the biome in its visuals, music, and level design as players defeat enemies to deliver the experience goal of feeling a sense of discovery. The restoration process is divided into smaller pieces that activate after every combat encounter, allowing players to discover the impacts of their actions without being too sudden or overwhelming.
Created documentation, collaborated with engineers to create the tools, and implemented the feature using Unreal Engine's level sequence.
Collaborated with the usability lead to iterate on the level design changes from the restoration system.

Level Design Iteration

Designed and blocked out level layouts in Miro and in the engine.
Iterated on the level design based on art, usability, and playtest feedback. I designed the level layout initially to be less linear and similar to a Soulslike level with shortcuts, overlapping paths, and limited respawn points. However, because there are some usability concerns and conflicts with our target audience (kids or teens), I redesigned the level layout to be more straightforward and clear with the addition of more respawn points as well.
Communicated with set dressers and gave design inputs along the way to ensure the result matches the vision.

Initial Layout on Paper

The initial idea drafted on paper. The world consisted of 2 biomes with interconnected shortcuts and paths very similar to a soulslike level.

Initial Level layout in Engine

I blocked out the initial layout in engine referring to the sketch with these circular disks as the gameplay spaces.

2D Level Layout

Drafted and maintained an updated 2D level layout with detailed comments to guide anyone working on the level.

Initial Layout on Paper

The initial idea drafted on paper. The world consisted of 2 biomes with interconnected shortcuts and paths very similar to a soulslike level.

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Click on the images for details

Designing Enemies

Designed and implemented tutorial enemies and grunt ants using Unreal Engine's behavior tree, blueprint controller, and custom-created bullet pattern editor.
Designed the beetle miniboss. Before the encounter, players are introduced to a grunt beetle that teaches them to circle the enemy and shoot at its weakspot from the back. Players are also introduced to destroying protective materials using the venom bullet. The beetle miniboss combines these mechanics, having similar behaviors and bullet patterns from grunt beetles with the unique addition of a protective material covering the weak spot. This design aims to present a combat puzzle without overwhelming players with new information.
Implemented ant miniboss's animation state machine.
Collaborated with engineers to set up enemy wave spawner for each encounters.
Built custom behavior tree nodes such as shockwaves to help another designer in his implementation of enemy behaviors.

Designing the Combat Experience

Worked with other designers to create different bullet types that players can obtain and shoot with both affordances in combat and traversal. By introducing a bullet's unique effect outside of combat and presenting a similar challenge in combat later, I aimed to provide a sense of discovery in players not only through biome restoration but also combat puzzles.
Implemented player character's animation state machine that supported root motion animation and collaborated with animators to iterate on the animation frames and transition times to deliver a fun and responsive controller.
Collaborated with another designer to iterate on the player character's jump velocity, height, and gravity.
Created animation events to help me tune the feel of catching and shooting bullets.
Created specific feature documents and communicated them to engineers to build efficiently such as aim assist, respawning, and other tools.

Bob Wu