Project Overview:
Joined the studio at a critical juncture to revive and redefine the vision of an unannounced, high-stakes survival sandbox title. Entering a project with a blurred design direction and no established designer, I stepped in as the primary Creative Vision Holder. I established the core design pillars, identified the target audience, and structured the game’s identity from the ground up, moving it successfully from a conceptual stage into a structured, production-ready reality.

As the Lead Designer within a mid-sized organization of 30 to 40 developers, I direct a dedicated team of 3 game designers. My role involves driving close cross-departmental communication, specifically ensuring seamless alignment between the Level Design and Narrative Design departments, alongside art, programming, and production teams.

Creative Direction & Leadership:

Authoring high-level sales and pitch documentation to support studio founders in securing funding and strategic partnerships.

Acting as the associate Vision Holder for the IP; defining core design pillars, genre positioning, and player-experience goals.

Directing and mentoring a dedicated team of 3 game designers, organizing design sprints, and establishing high communication standards across all development departments.

Fostering close, daily collaboration with the Level Design and Narrative Design teams to ensure the game world’s layout and environmental storytelling perfectly sync with the core mechanics.

Systems & Gameplay Architecture:

Ecosystem & AI Design: Conceptualizing and designing dynamic game biomes, interactive environments, and emergent AI behaviors.

Core Systems: Designing, prototyping, and expanding the fundamental gameplay loops, including advanced traversal mechanics and core combat loops.

Economy & Progression: Architecting the foundational progression framework and resource allocation ecosystems.

Immersive UI/UX: Designing spatial and high-immersion user interface layouts to maximize player engagement.

Documentation & Pipelines:

Building the studio’s complete Game Design Documentation and framework from scratch, creating a scalable „source of truth” for code, art, and design departments to streamline production pipeline efficiency.