DEVELOPMENT INFO
Genre: MMO FPS Survival Engine: Unreal 4 Development Time: ~9 months Live Support Time: ~7 months |
RESPONSIBILITIES
Role: Senior Designer (Gameplay and Technical Design) - Set up initial balance numbers for: - Item crafting requirements and recipes - Creature stats (health, damage, stamina, carrying capacity, etc) - Equipment stats (damage, armor value, harvest rate, ammo, accuracy, etc) - Resource availability, location, and quantity per region - Responsible for maintenance of most game Blueprints - Collaborated with Lead Designer on creation of major features - Authored in-game flavor text: "Dino Dossiers" and "Explorer Notes" - Implemented and maintained sockets on all creature and player models - Implemented sound design for all creatures - Interacted with Twitch online community and championed player needs |
My Role
Overview
As a Senior Gameplay and Technical Designer, I was responsible for design and implementation of many of the game's most important elements. I created most of the game's Blueprints, aside from the creatures, which I worked on but did not create. I created the Blueprints for the game's resources, recipes, equipment (weapons, armor, harvesting tools, ammo, etc), structures, engrams, eggs, relics, saddles, cosmetics, and more. i also implemented and kept up-to-date all creature sockets, which was especially important whenever we added new cosmetics to the game.
Balance
I did most of the game's Early Access balance pass. An exhaustive list of of everything I balanced would be too large to realistically put here, but if there's a numeric value in the game that needed to be balanced, chances are I worked on it and did the initial balance. I also curated and kept up-to-date the spreadsheet we used to record the stats of each creature, piece of equipment, structure, etc.
Flexibility
As Studio Wildcard began as a small indie studio, only about one third of my work on ARK was actually in-editor. This was all the normal work on Blueprint, animations notifies, resource distribution, etc. Another third was balance done in spreadsheets. The final third was tasks that involved neither balance nor in-engine implementation--such as creative writing for the game's lore and collectibles, sound design for placeholder sounds while we waited for contracted sounds to come in (which sometimes took months), having a presence in ARK's Twitch community by visiting streamers and getting feedback from players, and discussions with the Lead Designer on what future content should have or what current content needed to change.
Story Writing
I wrote all of the "Dino Dossiers" and "Explorer Notes" for the game while I was at the studio. This is some of the work I'm most proud of on ARK, but also some of the least directly impactful to the game. The Dino Dossiers ended up being one of the fan-favorite features of the game, which I took as a great compliment. I used the Dino Dossiers as a way to make subtle fun jokes with the community, and to "fix" inconsistencies with the game world (such as the inaccurate depiction of the Stegosaurus back-plates). While writing the Explorer Notes, I was pleased to be able to make each of the six characters I was writing as have a distinct and very different writing style from each other.
Personal Note
My experience working on ARK: Survival Evolved expanded my abilities as a designer farther than anything I've done in my life. In addition to my regular duties as a technical designer, I often worked as a sort of catch-all designer, filling in wherever help was needed. This is how I ended up doing the creature sound implementation (something I had never done before), but the game's sound design has been well received. Similarly, I volunteered to write the Dino Dossiers and Explorer Notes that I mentioned above.
As a Senior Gameplay and Technical Designer, I was responsible for design and implementation of many of the game's most important elements. I created most of the game's Blueprints, aside from the creatures, which I worked on but did not create. I created the Blueprints for the game's resources, recipes, equipment (weapons, armor, harvesting tools, ammo, etc), structures, engrams, eggs, relics, saddles, cosmetics, and more. i also implemented and kept up-to-date all creature sockets, which was especially important whenever we added new cosmetics to the game.
Balance
I did most of the game's Early Access balance pass. An exhaustive list of of everything I balanced would be too large to realistically put here, but if there's a numeric value in the game that needed to be balanced, chances are I worked on it and did the initial balance. I also curated and kept up-to-date the spreadsheet we used to record the stats of each creature, piece of equipment, structure, etc.
Flexibility
As Studio Wildcard began as a small indie studio, only about one third of my work on ARK was actually in-editor. This was all the normal work on Blueprint, animations notifies, resource distribution, etc. Another third was balance done in spreadsheets. The final third was tasks that involved neither balance nor in-engine implementation--such as creative writing for the game's lore and collectibles, sound design for placeholder sounds while we waited for contracted sounds to come in (which sometimes took months), having a presence in ARK's Twitch community by visiting streamers and getting feedback from players, and discussions with the Lead Designer on what future content should have or what current content needed to change.
Story Writing
I wrote all of the "Dino Dossiers" and "Explorer Notes" for the game while I was at the studio. This is some of the work I'm most proud of on ARK, but also some of the least directly impactful to the game. The Dino Dossiers ended up being one of the fan-favorite features of the game, which I took as a great compliment. I used the Dino Dossiers as a way to make subtle fun jokes with the community, and to "fix" inconsistencies with the game world (such as the inaccurate depiction of the Stegosaurus back-plates). While writing the Explorer Notes, I was pleased to be able to make each of the six characters I was writing as have a distinct and very different writing style from each other.
Personal Note
My experience working on ARK: Survival Evolved expanded my abilities as a designer farther than anything I've done in my life. In addition to my regular duties as a technical designer, I often worked as a sort of catch-all designer, filling in wherever help was needed. This is how I ended up doing the creature sound implementation (something I had never done before), but the game's sound design has been well received. Similarly, I volunteered to write the Dino Dossiers and Explorer Notes that I mentioned above.
Game Description
Stranded on the shores of a mysterious island, you must learn to survive. Use your cunning to kill or tame the primeval creatures roaming the land, and encounter other players to survive, dominate... and escape!
ARK: Survival Evolved is an MMO resource-survival FPS, where players must survive and thrive in a harsh environment filled with dinosaurs and other monsters. Players wake up on The Island, essentially naked, where they must gather resources to use for building equipment and bases. Finding food and resources is made harder by the fact that the Islands other inhabitants (dinosaurs, giant creatures, and other Survivors) often attempt to kill the player. Equipment and structures begins as hand-forged wood-and-rock tools, and progress up through advanced sci-fi weaponry as the player learns new engrams.
ARK: Survival Evolved was released in Early Access in June, 2015. It was released to retail in August, 2017.
ARK: Survival Evolved is an MMO resource-survival FPS, where players must survive and thrive in a harsh environment filled with dinosaurs and other monsters. Players wake up on The Island, essentially naked, where they must gather resources to use for building equipment and bases. Finding food and resources is made harder by the fact that the Islands other inhabitants (dinosaurs, giant creatures, and other Survivors) often attempt to kill the player. Equipment and structures begins as hand-forged wood-and-rock tools, and progress up through advanced sci-fi weaponry as the player learns new engrams.
ARK: Survival Evolved was released in Early Access in June, 2015. It was released to retail in August, 2017.