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Name: Alexis Cosano Rodríguez
Role: Gameplay Designer
— My job —
As the Gameplay Designer, I have been in charge of creating an experience that the players will enjoy when playing the game. Since the beginning, I have been creating, balancing, modifying or testing either the karts, the players’ behaviours, the maps, the items or the camera, to see what made the gameplay worse or better and also new ways to improve it every time a problem appeared.
Trying to have a well balanced kart, with a well balanced drifting that make them enjoyable and make the players be comfortable with it is a big process of iteration, a small change can have a big impact in the game.
Apart from taking a part in creating the players controls, determine the values needed for the karts and the drifting and all the work related to testing, balancing and modification of these, I have also contributed to other aspects of the project.
- The first core mechanic I proposed was related with the Soapbox Races, here in Catalonia called “Curses d’Andròmines”. The gameplay consisted in levels that were entirely steep segments going down. The karts would have no engine and the player would not have to press any button to accelerate, but it would have some way to stop the kart (something similar to Kirby’s Air Ride, where the machines run by themselves and the player can press the “A” button to stop them). This concept was cancelled due to problems with the first engine of physics that we used and the limitations of the engine itself. We opted for a more classical way to face the game and followed the path that the Mario Kart saga follows. Although this change, we maintained the theme that I proposed about the Yokais and ancient japanese culture. Following this subject, I also proposed the name given to the game, calling it Ri-Karts, being a combination of “Ricard” our teacher and “Karts”.
- I made the first iteration of the camera position and interaction with the gameplay. Later on, it was improved taking in mind new features added to the game and adding some aspects that I forgot to mention. I looked up a lot of examples regarding racing games and games that may have some segments with racing on them to see what they did well or wrong and try to have an idea about what we could do. Some examples would be Mario Kart (most of the titles of the saga), Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Kirby’s Air Ride, Sonic R…
- I have also been in charge of the second iteration of the design of the items. I proposed the idea of grabbing a makibishi, a spiky object used in the ancient Japan that would be thrown to the ground to slow down the enemies and the item box being a Daruma doll, which represents the spirit of advancing and progressing in life. The makibishi is the representation of the banana peel found in the Mario Kart saga, it can be found as a single one or an object that gives three makibishis. Apart from this, I have also determined the probabilities of the items for every place.
- Last but not least, I have taken a part on creating and correcting the Game Design Document, which can be found here.
— Contact me —