The Game
Lizzie, the underbelly miscreant, has been summoned to a country town and aims to snatch the souls of all its buggy inhabitants. However, she faces a large threat and needs to harness the powers of her stolen souls to overcome the town’s protectors and their empyrean powers. Fulfil Lizzie’s adventure in this strategy rogue-like and prove that your brain can beat their brawn.
The Process
Working in a team of 7 over 6 months of development time, myself and the team at Highly Flammable Studio had full creative freedom in the creation of Bedevil. Driving a lot of the creative direction I was able to work with other disciplines to create an addictive and difficult player experience that draws the player in from their first possession. In taking charge of the UI/UX & Sound design I was able to mold a lot of the player experience to the vision that we shared as a team, while learning a lot of valuable lessons along the way.
UI/UX Design
Having previously worked on a range of different UI solutions, I wanted to lead the design of the User Interface (UI), and User Experience (UX) on bedevil, building on-top of my experience and knowledge of the matter already.
Through creating a symmetrical layout the player was able to understand the extent of their progression and further identify their abilities through the use of colour consistency.
My design pipeline always consisted of first, prototyping and collecting feedback from my peers, iterating, then repeating. Using the engine itself or an external tool such as MS Paint, I was able to build the outline of what I was seeking to create before moving forwards with the artists. Collecting input from others was imperative, as every creative should know, as it allowed me to develop my work in conjunction with the teams vision, influencing me to create my best work.
Audio Design
I was really excited to take on the direction of the audio design as from the outset I had a really clear vision of how I wanted the game to sound, from the SFX of the Paladin’s & Lizzie as well as the music direction that I wanted to take.
SFX
When directing Lizzies audio, I wanted her actions to feel really powerful and impactful that contrasts her tiny physical appearance. A lot of the sounds are quite hot and sharp, to eminate hell, where she comes from
For the paladins, I wanted them to have a really heavy, holy vibe to them, in order to create a distinct difference between them and Lizzie.
Music
Working with a fried who has experience creating music, we developed the in game music that you hear as you play through the level. I had a really cool concept for the music in the game where, in the instance of Lizzie being chased by the Paladins, a heavy Paladin theme would come over the top of the Lizzie base music to create an extra layer less to the player, developing a unique atmosphere in the game. Alas, this never ended up coming to be due to time constraints, but I am still really proud of the base tune that plays in the game.
Tutorial Design
Throughout the projects timespan I worked on a range of different areas, one of which included the design of the tutorial. At this point of the development our programmer had to focus on developing the main game and its mechanics, so I was tasked with the development of the systems in the tutorial. Always being up for a challenge I worked diligently to try and create a tutorial that directed the player naturally whilst introducing mechanics at a steady rate, attempting to show not tell.
