Sanctuary
Sanctuary was made for the 2023 Just Play Game Jam hosted by Anima Interactive. An unconventional tower defence game where you play as an Explorer trying to survive harsh conditions on an alien planet. I collaborated closely with a team of 5 to create the look, feel, and functionality of the gameplay, while guiding the work to stay close to the overall creative vision.
As the level designer and narrative lead for this game, my responsibilities were:
- Designed story concept and story lore
- Coordinate tasks between artists, sound designer, developer and co-writer to implement in Unity
- Maintained game design documentation
- Designed gameplay and narrative beats
- Designed win-loss conditions
- Designed level map
- Story development and editor
- Co-wrote game dialogue
Throughout the development process, the main challenge was to iterate the in-game mechanics and incentives (enemy difficulty, length of enemy wave, economics of tower purchasing etc.) to create the right player experience. This game flips conventional tower defence mechanics on its head. Win conditions can’t be achieved through killing or hoarding of resources. The player needs to interact in a considered way with the game mechanics in order to arrive at the true ending.
Notes on design:
As the designer responsible for story development, it was important to establish a clear world and character lore. Even though this may not factor directly into gameplay, it supported the team in delivering a consistent and coherent look and feel for the experience. It keep the emotional tone consistent, and kept the team moving creatively in the same direction. Here is an excerpt of the game’s lore.
The level design was in the classic tower defense format. It was important to keep with recognizable genre design conventions. The genre-bending design of the game was in its mechanics. By willingly sacrificing your own tower defenses, the player “wins” by joining the planet’s inhabitants in their “sanctuary”, ending their own quest for survival. These subverted mechanics were supported by the game dialogue.
