Ryan Gilbertthey/them

For a class assignment, our team of eight redesigned a pre-1984 arcade game for mobile: no multiplayer, d-pad and single-button controls, one mobile-specific mechanic, aimed at casual retro fans who want low entry and a high skill ceiling. We chose Alpine Ski (1981) and turned it into an endless sled-dog run. I wrote the GDD, did the original concept design, designed both new mechanics, and built the tile maps for every test level.

The bark mechanic lets players shout "Yip Yip" to speed up, with no way of slowing down. The goal of this feature set was to create a silly, out-of-control feel that supports low player investment time. We added a touchscreen toggle for audio input so players could still engage with the mechanic in crowded or loud places. The jump mechanic gives a second way to evade: rocks can be jumped or steered around, but trees can only be steered around, so players make a choice on every obstacle.

Memories of Mazu is a VR serious game exploring the journey from grief to gratitude. You play as Ai, whose grandfather Yeye has just passed away. Walking his home island, Ai collects memories of him and slowly works through the sadness of loss and what it means to go on in a world without him. I was the narrative designer, one of two designers on an eight-person team at the University of Utah.

Memories of Mazu shipped as a finished, released game. Writing the script and then building the systems that deliver it taught me that narrative design doesn't stop at the page: where a trigger sits and how a subtitle reads decide whether a line lands in the moment the player reaches it.

I wrote the narrative outline and, ultimately, the full script, shaping how Ai's grief turns toward gratitude across the island.

On the implementation side, I built the subtitle system in Unreal Engine 5 and placed the volume triggers that start each line of dialogue as the player explores. I also handled cleanup passes, such as adding textures to the environment.

Across the expansion, my design feedback focused on one question: does the reward repay what the player puts in?

The new heat weapons ask players to manage heat constantly through a novel reload mechanic. With a small group of testers, I argued to the weapons designer that a demanding mechanic must be repaid with power. We proposed damage bonuses and favorable perk combinations to offset it, and the team added them. In playtests, we saw a spike in heat-weapon use across all activities, and players praised the weapons' power after launch.

While testing long-term rank-ups, I saw a need for aspirational goals: ways for the player to express themselves in the new content. I wrote a multi-page proposal on the value of earnable cosmetics, what they should be, and when players should earn them. That led to an earnable ship and three earnable shaders (cosmetic color schemes) being added to the vendor progression tracks.

Launch day was critical-error-free, thanks to the whole team's work!

Kess and Toei Animation set out to turn the Wano arc into a 1–4 player cooperative board game built around asymmetric crew-building and resource collection. I joined Kess as a design intern and was promoted to Associate Game Designer. My primary responsibility was designing and balancing abilities for 10 playable characters and 5 bosses, refined over dozens of internal playtests.

The core challenge was making each ability mechanically useful while staying true to its character. In playtesting, certain team compositions became dominant, but those winning teams often grouped characters in ways that made no sense for the Wano arc's story. I created character archetypes that slotted each crew member into a distinct team role, so strong teams came from combinations fans would want to build anyway. Players want to see Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji on a team together and have it work, even though the characters naturally want to do similar things. I solved this by flavoring similar characters into different archetypes, so they gravitate toward one another. This archetype system made team compositions like the monster trio viable rather than unbalanced.