Game Designer and Developer
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Making games about Culture,
Mental health, and Social issues
Project Highlight
I have been developing games since 2016; this is my proudest project and the development story of its creation and how I played my role as an effective leader.
Every summer with the assistance of the program Gameheads, I’ve had many opportunities to work on a number of incredible projects I am very proud of. This project, back in 2021 during the COVID-19 Pandemic, has a special place in my heart because of the many hats I wore during development as I refined the mechanics, created the world story along with the personality of the main character, and how it opened my eyes on the level of responsibility one must have to create a balanced satisfying game-loop with heavy inspiration coming from Mexican Culture.
If interested in simply playing the game without reading more you can find it here:
https://gameheads.itch.io/ole-torobo
Humble Beginnings - Where the Project first Began
Two friends from Gameheads came to me with the original idea
On April 3rd, 2021, the pitch discussed creating a game around Mexican Bullfighting. To avoid the animal cruelty associated with the extreme sport, exchange the portrayal of real animals with mechanical bulls instead. They wanted the gameplay to focus its reference on how dodging is an integral part of Bullfighting so movement, positioning, and intense moments had to be in the game.
Gathering an awesome team of smart trustworthy individuals
Based on my experience working with many projects and with my knowledge of all the Gameheads students, I was tasked to figure out which people be the best fit for an ambitious project such as this one. Already I knew I wanted first and foremost teammates that were talented/skilled in their particular field because if the game was to be inspired by Latin culture, everything had to be perfect like the art style screaming at you that it knows its identity. The other quality was narrowing down the list further by finding people I know who have no issues with providing direct communication with me nor will be difficult to get a hold of should something need to be changed.
As the Project was beginning to get serious with six people on board and even having a white box created, I knew there was an invisible issue inevitably going to plague the team in the future and they had to be made aware of it immediately before progressing forward. While we had a solid idea in mind, I knew we all needed to be in the same headspace about what we were creating so there was no confusion.
Dialing It Back - Ideation as a team
In a discord call meeting, I explained to everyone that although we all had an idea of the game we were creating, we did not all have the same ideas in mind on how to achieve it. I made this point clear by asking each person what they wanted to implement most in this game and very quickly my team realized how different their answers were from one another. With that out of the way, I gave them a link to a document I created ahead of time so we can all have a space to let our imaginations and visions run wild without any restrictions put in place by anybody.
Every Person has a page to themselves to think and explain
Now that everyone understood why we were doing this, I gave everyone a moment to read off the instructions that come with various examples to get started on their thinking process should they get stuck somewhere because the last thing I ever wanted was for someone to have little to nothing down when I know each of them is extremely capable and careful thinkers.
Unknownst to them, while this group activity served as a way of scoping our game project down, I also did this to study and note their personal thinking habits so I can best understand them to assist them in the future. For example, I learned my programmer organizes everything down to separate sections and bullet points which meant my text message instructions should be styled similarly for smooth communication, or in verbal conversation things should be broken down and be provided with an abundance of clear-cut details.
Determining Effort, Value, and Time
After a very lengthy conversation where everyone had the chance to speak, we had to pick off ideas each person said that everyone was equally on board to create and implement into the game. The things highlighted in yellow we concluded that these are our best options to not only create things that are reasonable to ask for our skill level and the amount of time we had but also an amazing overall experience for our players.
While most projects people will always go for the Maybes and Quick Wins, we wanted to push for things beyond our comfort zone which meant the other two categories were carefully selected with things we felt very passionately about to get done. Everything you see highlighted did make it into the final version of the game and I could not be more proud of knowing we accomplished what we set out in the first place when we planned the project.
The Main Three - The Core Pillars and the direct references
During the development of my previous projects, my team always ask valid questions like introducing a new idea we never thought of before; however, it is a major headache to accept the fact that it changes our initial thoughts made for the project or if we should drop it/do it in the future should we continue the project. This wastes time and creating these focused principles to never forget and always rely on has been a habit of mine for a while now.
I believe it's best to always do these as a team, but sometimes responsibility lies on me to determine them.
For this project in particular, we came up with these three things to always come back to.
A Clearly Inspired
Artsyle of Mexico
Inspiration/Reference: Mexico City and Bullfighting
To convey this game's identity of Latin culture, we had to study and understand the bullfighting culture in Mexico along with referencing the aesthetic style of the location overall meaning we watched YouTube videos, read articles, and Google whatever in between so we can get a solid foundation in mind.
Regarding bullfighting, for example, we noticed the matador's clothing was flashy even if it only consisted of two color schemes, and when they performed live they had a confident radiating personality, never fearing the danger in front of them. To avoid getting hit by bulls, they would use a cape to lure them in and will try to escape without harm at the very last second, exciting the crowd very loudly. When combining both aspects (the personality and the sport), they would perform different movement maneuvers with their body and cape to make the spectacle always interesting to watch.
When it came to making the town, we already knew that it had to give off the vibe of an inviting environment that brought out many people together so we wanted houses and stores to be close to each other. The culture valued strong saturated colors and vibrant hues which we planned to showcase with colorful papel picado, the arena seating sections, and the light source in the game. Finally, to further reference Latin culture, we placed food health items commonly known in that culture so it would be indisputable.
Gameplay that is easy to pick up, but hard to master
Inspiration/Reference: Enter the Gungeon
Taking direct inspiration from Masahiro Sakurai, who had this philosophy ever since the Kirby series, he always felt that games should be basic enough for any beginner to play but mechanically hardcore for experts to find enjoyment in grasping the mechanics and showing their dominance in gameplay. While our game did not have many action verbs to perform, with "dodge" as the main action, we needed to find a way to make it interesting enough to want to continue playing our game and we found Enter the Gungeon to help find our answer.
This game focuses on reaching the last floor with many of its rooms filled with breakable walls, barrels to move, and even tables to take cover from flying bullets. This meant that whatever environment the player found themselves in, their movement always had to remain intentional, vigilant, and strategic. How this relates to our game is should the player dodge the bull's incoming attack, the bull loses health because of crashing into the surrounding environment (metal containers with possible items inside for use).
Regarding our dodge mechanic, we took inspiration from Legend of Zelda: Breathe of the Wild where performing it shows a slow-motion effect on screen and we implemented the same thing to replicate the good feeling it comes with dodging at the very last second and wanting to do it again. Understandably, there had to be a reward for always trying to do it very late so we made it so players can see the bull taking more damage from the container AND can perform the same action again should they be targeted by a new bull.
Creating a not-to-serious story that is meant to be more funny
Inspiration/Reference: River City Girls
While the Latin art style was going to be shown in the surrounding environment, creating a comic strip and concept art had to come from a particular art style in mind, and our artist Reyna was insistent on using this game for inspiration along with the comedic tone/dialogue constantly used throughout the game. This team conversation opened our minds to realize that with such an extreme sport as bullfighting which is serious and people have serious thoughts about it, we felt it made sense to lean more on humor as an important aspect to avoid controversy and because we wanted to have fun while creating this game in the long run.
The focus on comedy helped form ideas about our main character and we believed it would be a good representation to have an interesting storyline of a woman entering a predominately male sport without meaning to and by complete accident. Ideas about our main character like giving her rotten bad luck as a running gag and the beginning where she panics at dealing with robotic bulls with no experience are pretty funny. Ideas like these that I came up with would help build an atmosphere of laughter instead of tension.
Of course, comedy is subjective, but at the end of the day, it needs to be well executed so it does not come across as forced or cringe. Special attention needs to be given here to understanding the character's personality and figuring out the dialogue in-game and that will be my job to determine.
Meeting Deadlines & Planning
With everything figured out, from April 3, 2021, to our Gameheads showcase on August 27, 2021 (a little over five months), I created this organized starting plan for everyone to follow which would continue when the Gameheads summer officially began with other people organizing teams and projects. All of these due dates are ones I set up for myself/my team and the things shown here were originally on a Trello board.
Creating an Organized Discord Server + Trello Board
Due: April/12/21
Because I will be handling the role of Project Lead and Manager, I need to create a system where everyone understands how to best communicate with each other. There is a channel for every role on the team, one about our schedules should they change, resources if they get stuck, general and important chat conversations, Gameheads news that impacts everyone, etc. Similarly, on Trello, organized categories and tasks helped me gauge progress and which individuals needed more help or time.
Elevator Pitch Presentation
Due: Gameheads Pitch Day (June/24/21)
The Gameheads board of directors listens to every project and provides a critique on them and ultimately green light approval to continue in its creation. With my experience in previous projects, I made the presentation and allowed each team member to insert their specific information. I would test them to make sure they knew what they were going to say. We make a new presentation every week to update everyone on our progress.
Detailed GDD Document
Due: Gameheads Pitch Day
I take every game project seriously to write a long document explaining the game in complete detail. Anyone on the team, whether discussing the game with their mentors or Gameheads staff, they can read: how the player wins/lose, how the dodge mechanic works, the attack pattern of bulls, how slow-motion is initiated, etc.
Create the Sound AND Art Asset List
Due: July/1/21
Since these roles are the backbone of realizing a game's ideal vision, I create a spreadsheet list of everything we need to make this game perfect. Previously with other projects, if these two roles do NOT have everything in advance, I noticed productivity and work put out decrease. Creating it also helps them realize how much their workload is.
Weekly Scrum & Sprint Spreadsheet
Due: Every Monday
at 12:30 PM
Everyone on my team is required to text me a detailed text description or stand up and verbally present to me what they worked on previously for the project, what they will be working on today, and if they need any help from anyone on the team. We tend to keep these brief for 5-15 minutes and I place the information into a spreadsheet for accountability purposes and reevaluate the project scope if needed.
Mentor Meetings
Selected by Both People
Gameheads provides a mentor to every student on a project so they can discuss updates regarding their project. These mentors specialize in the same role as the student and these meetings are to ask for pieces of advice that otherwise I can not provide to them. For this project, I paired with Rich Gallup (whom I still keep in contact with to this very day).
Feedback Notes into Sprints
Due: Sundays at 3:00 PM
Every Saturday we must present to everyone what we have worked on for this game and mentors/Gameheads board provide us feedback on things to improve, things that are missing from the game, or concerns. I write down everything the moment the comments are given to us and later on I organize it into categories and then specific individuals who will be in charge of fixing these mistakes. These later likely become their next sprint.
Creating Comic Strip
Due: May/03/21
I must research the comedy dialogue shown in River City Girls and other games of humor to get a feel for what I should be writing for my dialogue interactions. The script must explain to the player the personality of our main character Maria and an explanation as to why she gets involved in bullfighting in the first place.
Although I did not mention every little piece I planned out for this project, you will see down below how my carefully planned process for my team ended up helping us out in the long run.
From an Inch to a Mile - Creation Process, Problems, and Solutions
This entire section will be me explaining to you all how the project progressively advanced and how small changes, whether in-game or how we operated as a team, helped everyone have an overall satisfying experience. I will also talk about trouble shooting issues and the solutions I had to overcome them.
Starting with various Mood Boards
During the creation process, we needed to determine definitively the game's perspective and the color pallets of everything from the main character and bulls to the background environment and in-game items. We gathered references from Google and Pinterest and discussed possible pathways to take, which made us more excited and thrilled to work on this project.
Official Character Concept Art + In-game Pixel Art
With a plethora of experience in this industry, I’ve had the chance to garner several creative and practical skills. This service is a compilation of these skills, and has given many clients the push they need to reach a new level through their project. Reach out today to learn more about this service and schedule a consultation.
Official
Frequently utilized by my clients, this service has been essential to success on many occasions. Along with my unique professional perspective, this service has helped clients reach new heights and gain more significant influence through their projects. If you’d like to learn more about this service, simply get in touch.
Consulting
I am able to provide this service thanks to years of gathering specialized experience. With a talent for conceptualizing and executing highly creative ideas, this service allows me to ensure no two projects are the same. Get in touch with me today to learn how this service can make a difference in your upcoming project.
A Lesson On Leadership
Weekly Announcements & Individual Check-ins Every Tuesday at 10 AM
Ideation
With a plethora of experience in this industry, I’ve had the chance to garner several creative and practical skills. This service is a compilation of these skills, and has given many clients the push they need to reach a new level through their project. Reach out today to learn more about this service and schedule a consultation.
Design
Frequently utilized by my clients, this service has been essential to success on many occasions. Along with my unique professional perspective, this service has helped clients reach new heights and gain more significant influence through their projects. If you’d like to learn more about this service, simply get in touch.
Consulting
I am able to provide this service thanks to years of gathering specialized experience. With a talent for conceptualizing and executing highly creative ideas, this service allows me to ensure no two projects are the same. Get in touch with me today to learn how this service can make a difference in your upcoming project.
Final Takeaways
I’m happy to say I'm extremely proud of the game's end result and the effort everyone on my team gave. I’ve developed many skillsets throughout this summer and on reflection of the work accomplished, these are the main three lessons learned.
Team Playtesting
Less Stressing
Journeys End
Trying Out Our Own
Game More Often
While
Dividing More Responsbility
To My Team
This project I had a few mental breakdowns I never told my team about
Even With A Solid Idea,
Teams Can Split
Frequently utilized by my clients, this service has been essential to success on many occasions. Along with my unique professional perspective, this service has helped clients reach new heights and gain more significant influence through their projects. If you’d like to learn more about this service, simply get in touch.
Contact Information
Did I leave any sort of impression on you that you want me to know? Maybe you have a question about me or any projects I worked on? Or how about wanting me to collaborate on a project with you? Whatever it may be send me an email!
