Design challenges and goals
- Craft an emotional journey and clear narrative arc without relying on dialogue
- Design a responsive AI companion that evokes a sense of care and protection
- Evoke the feeling of being small, vulnerable, and childlike in the player
- Build mechanics, systems, and interactions that convey the evolving bond between characters
My contributions
As a Director, Lead Engineer and Designer my tasks are:
- Led the design, narrative an art team to achieve Feature Complete stage by Dec 2025
- Prototype, implement and playtest mechanics and systems in UE5 with C++ and Blueprints
- Led production alongside my main Producer
Current progress
1. The Playground
The Playground is like a kid and their parent hiking through a forest. There’s no clear objective besides following the Guardian’s lead This section is all about discovery and exploration. When designing mechanics and interactions specially here, we’re guided by one question: What would a kid do on a forest hike? Climb rocks, run downhill, jump in puddles, balance on branches etc. Small, playful moments that express wonder.
Traversal mechanics and systems
In the process of answering those question we currently have a mechanic for branch walking (using paths with splines), one for piggybacking on the Guardians shoulder and one for lilypad jumping (using PCG tools to place the lilypads the player jumps to). We are currently playtesting and refining them.
Old Vertical slice
In this video you can see our bug chase scene, which is where the Kid finds a shiny bug and decides to run off from the Guardian, only to find himself in danger at the end. April 2025
Progress gallery
