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Role: Gameplay Designer

Name: Laura Ripoll

Contact:

LinkedIn

Mail: ripoll.laud@gmail.com

My job:

My job as a designer was mostly related with relegating Yokai characters to a karts’ game. I was in charge of finding suitable characters for a game of this kind and creating a context and story in lines with the topic and genre of Ri-Karts.

Although these tasks came under the initial stages of the project, I took them into consideration to carry out my other tasks as, for instance, when assisting the artists with encapsuling the attitude of the characters in their animations. All the other varied tasks I had dealt with can be ascertained below.

My main areas of work:

• Looking for references

  • Main features of Kart games that could be applied to the project (taken as reference, subsequently, for the design of the camera or in other areas)
  • Extensive search of Yokai games to detect the most popular Yokai characters afterwards

• Characters’ design

  • Relatable characters from the most popular Yokai
  • Delimit the list taking into account:
    • Modelling and animation possible issues caused by the shape of the character
    • Balanced classification (heavy and light)

• Narrative

  • Short, concise and coherent
  • Mix the Yokai topic with cars

• Camera design

  • Position, inclination and behaviour of the camera in different situations
  • Balancing and testing

• Animation design assistance

  • Set animation states
  • Help with design of animations (possible keyframes as a guide for artists)

• Particles’ first design approach (Most of them used as references, and many may not be implemented due to time limitations)

  • Particle systems that could help giving feedback
  • Design of particle systems (moment of activation, location of emitter, division in subsistems, priority…)
  • References of all the designed systems

• Items design assistance (Evil spirit redesign) (Redesign kept but with input changed)

  • Redesign of Evil Spirit
  • More involvement of the second player, now having two roles:
    • Attacker: Launches the firecracker making the other kart go slower and inverting its controls
    • Defender: When a kart is affected by the Evil Spirit, the second player can drive it away by pressing continuously RT and LT
  • Set Evil Spirit’s parameters, balancing and testing

• Sound design assistance

  • Adapt already existing sound list to new gameplay
  • Establish the SFX’s priority
  • Creation of some of the in-game sounds