Design: PEMDAS Behavior
Project: EOPRISM
One of the first things I did on EOPRISM was designing and documenting the most common enemy seen in the game, the PEMDAS. This multi-page document covers basic enemy behavior as well as more mechanically unique enemies and their design intention. On the last page, I created an AI behavior flowchart with their many states and the stimulus needed to move along it. This document was used by programmers to understand any new features that needed to be added, level designers so they can build better spaces, and artists and animators to know what assets that needed to be created.
Design: The Cricket
Project: Mantra
Working on Mantra The Cricket was designed as a popcorn enemy to give players something to fight in between larger combat arenas. To give them more mechanical identity, the Cricket is the only enemy that can somewhat keep up with the player's advanced movement; this adds pressure to the player encouraging them to either keep moving or deal with the Crickets first for some breathing room.
This document was given to artists and animators to begin concepting out and eventually animating this new foe.
Design: Charge Pistol
Project: Mantra
During internal play testing on Mantra, I noticed an unintended player behavior; players often would have no loaded weapons when engaging a new enemy, forcing them to either disengage entirely or reload a weapon in front of the enemy trying to dodge incoming projectiles. In an attempt to lessen the latter player behavior, and due to development constraints, I designed and prototyped the Charge Pistol to always have a loaded weapon available. I also added a secondary mechanic leveraging the weapons heat as a resource.