Nov 2022 - Feb 2026 • Cozy Adventure Game • Design Team of 10

Game Designer

Initial Release:

Design and Implementation of 70+ Puzzle Rooms

Live Service Updates:

Development of Merry Meadows open-world region
Planning of Live Event Calendars and event reward structures
Layout design of 100+ event and quest cutscenes
Thousands of bug fixes!

Puzzle Rooms

My primary contribution to Hello Kitty: Island Adventure was designing and implementing the nearly 70 various puzzle rooms found around the game's open world. Along with design each rooms layout, work included building Finite State Machines for puzzle elements, planning location for room entrances, and placing art assets to dress up and provide signifiers.

Original greybox for Crystal Conundrum puzzle room.

QA solution for Wheatflour Wonderland Lamppost Puzzle B.

What Went Well

Advocated for mechanic design changes that led to improved puzzle room development. Fighting for my design ideas gave me a clear rule-set for each mechanic that, when combined, resulted in more engaging room designs.
Collaborated with artists to provide clear signifiers for interconnected room elements. (Antlines were my favorite addition!)
Designed multi-asset room entrances that signify additional information; [room undiscovered/room incomplete/room completed]
Strengthened room designs by collaborating with leads and engineering on new mechanic elements. Ice blocks and dynamic water levels resulted in particularly strong room designs.

What to Improve

No codified implementation system; new rooms were often copy pasted from each other, to much lost time. In the future I hope to work with engineers to develop tools to streamline a cleaner approach to implementing game elements.

Merry Meadows

Following the original Apple Arcade release of Hello Kitty: Island Adventure, my work shifted towards the second planned update location, Merry Meadows. I got to work closely with our concept artist and creative director to plan out an tiered area that would be unlocked to players over time. My favorite part was getting to hide a variety of items, doors, and secrets all around the various terrain of the level.

What Went Well

Learned to design an open world area from pre-prodution through post production. From taking a concept art image and turning it into a playable world, to filling that world with secrets, collectables, and things to do.
Gated content through tiered world design. Encouraged players to revisit areas as they unlocked more of the world overtime by 'teasing' content that couldn't yet be accessed. "Oh I can see there's a comic book up there! I'll have to go find it once I can climb up to the next area!"

What to Improve

Letting go and sharing the design process. Throughout Merry Meadows initial development, I got very passionate and protective of my work and the area. During the final iterations, I learned to take a step back and trust my fellow designers to help finalize the location.

Initial drawing for Merry Meadows

I am particularly proud of cutscene work on the quest Anything you can do as well as the 2026 Imagination Celebration event (which isn't out as of writing).

Filling in the Gaps

Once work on Merry Meadows was complete, and after a short stint to finish up the last update for HEROish, I did a menagerie of various design rolls as the team pushed live content updates. Work included quest design (such as the Hide and Seek quests), lots of cutscene work on quests and events, additional puzzle work for City Town Sewer puzzle rooms and Wheatflour Wonderland lamppost puzzles, and assisting with event content through cutscene implementation and reward calendar design.

What Went Well

Throughout the whole project, I took on a lot of different design rolls and learn a lot from each roll. Narrative design and content planning were particular highlights.
Collaboration with other departments. Learned how to work closely with QA, Engineering, Audio, and Art to help bring a variety of ideas to completion.

What to Improve

Motivation to work on big ideas; when not focused on assigned tasks, I wish I had pushed myself to work harder on some unplanned game elements that I hoped to see implemented, such as Multiplayer Puzzle Rooms. In future, I plan to communicate with my leads, assign myself tickets and deadlines, to help guide my motivation into seeing ideas like that into fruition, while also taking better advantage of Hackathon's.
Finding my place among the design team. Coming into the project late from HEROish, I often felt isolated from my other designers. My solution during work on Hello Kitty: Island Adventure was collaborating closely in one-on-ones with fellow designers, tackling projects as a team instead of alone.

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