Since I've been working for Sarbakan for a while now, and considering my 2 passages there, it was more convenient to list all the projects I have worked on from the most recent to the oldest.
Blox Breaker Arcade Game
The game's recognition technology is surpisingly precise since it works with a camera which detects 60 FPS of movement in real-space and transfers the movement in the virtual world!
This was challenging to pull-off and Adrenaline was confident that this kind of product would have a huge success in the Arcade venues they usually target.
Here's the official video presentation of the game by Adrenaline Amusement, Sarbakan's parent company:
https://www.facebook.com/120809157990586/videos/181840099421353/
Challenges
Lots of A/B testing to reach the best possible gameplay experience
The development was tightly linked to the R&D department and the technology involved
The game's rythm
Players' fatigue
Tomb Raider Arcade Game
This is a Rail Shooter played with actual physical plastic guns, on a 135" projector screen!I was assigned as one of the multiple Level Designers for this huge game. Each Designer assigned on the project had to go through the whole process of creating one level at a time, from A to Z, including :
- Paper-mapping
- Producing a storyboard
- Setting the camera's path
- Placing enemy spawners
- Placing placeholder objects
- Placing power-ups
- Placing collectibles
- Choosing among a certain amount of possible puzzles at key moments
- Helping with the integration of all assets
- Tweaking gameplay, staging and difficulty
This was a hard, but very fun project on which to work as a Level Designer because everyone had a great deal of creative freedom and the process was very dynamic between the different team members who had to work very closely to reach the high-quality standard that we aimed.
Rabbids Hollywood Arcade Game
This is a Rail Shooter played with actual physical plastic guns, on a 135" projector screen!We were 2 designers assigned on this project: my colleague Jo was in charge of the framework that would allow Sarbakan to produce multiple more Rail Shooters in the future, and I was in charge of the Game Design for this particular arcade machine.
At first, we had a very short deadline to produce the first world of the game because it had to be ready for the IAAPA trade show in just a couple of months away. In addition, this was the first time Sarbakan produced that type of game, or as a matter of fact, such an ambitious project at all. So, this was the biggest challenge that I have faced in my whole career, but we actually pulled it off!
After the trade show, producing the 2 other worlds went much more smoothly and I was very proud of the final result.
Tomb Raider production started in parallel during the second half of the production, so Jo and I had to transpose a lot of information to our second Rail Shooter arcade game, which went much more smoothly for 3 reasons :
- The framework was established
- Our expertise on the previous project (Rabbids Hollywood)
- Better time management
Goldfish Go-Kart
Sarbakan has been producing browser-based games and mobile games for the Goldfish franchise for a while now. For my part, I have only worked on that particular title, which was surprisingly fun! My colleague Dan being the main designer for this game, I was assign to help with the Level Design, as well as some other features (cameras, balancing).
Destination Solitaire by Mobility Ware
This is a "Solitaire" mobile game, but with Power-Ups and a "number of turns" à la Candy Crush. This was, and still is one of Sarbakan's long-term partnership, so between projects, or when the workflow slowed down, we were assigned to produce levels for this huge, almost never-ending game.
- Over a Thousand levels were produced (a bit over a hundred from me)
- Dozens of destinations were produced, each of which had their own unique mecanics
- Games were balanced to finish as much "close to win" as possible
Mattel Baby Dragons
Between 2 projects, I was assigned to produce one of the updates for our nurturing game Mattel's Baby Dragons.
This update was about incorporating a Happiness gauge, which the players could fill every day with 2 mini-games. This also required converting some existing systems to award happiness as well.
Playmobil Horsefarm
I was the lone Designer for this Nurturing project. Look it up here :
My Dolphin Show 2
I was the main Designer for this huge project. The client wanted everything for his game :
- A Nurturing Section for the Sea Animals
- A City-Building game with ressources and timers (à-la-Clash-of-Clans)
- A 2D sidescrolling Dolphin-Shows with finger precise controls and physics
- Including a "Level Editor" available for the players
- Allowing players to play each others' Dolphin Shows
We actually delivered a very decent product including all of the above, but sadly, the game was cancelled because they couldn't reach an agreement about which aspect of game they wanted to focus on : The Park-building or the Nurturing.
Carnival Shooting Gallery prototype
This is the prototype that led to our big Rail Shooters we eventually did (Rabbids Hollywood & Tomb Raider). I worked as the only Game Designer on this project. It lasted for a very long time since there were lots of long-term R&D involved, so I did this between some other projects, until we struck the deal with Ubisoft for the Rabbids game!I have no visual to show since this is corporate research.
Pink Martini Casino Slot Machines
I was the lone Designer on this project. Classic Slot Machine project involving monetization and market analysis considerations.
Inside Out Story Book Deluxe
I was the lone Designer on this project. This was not really a game, but more of an interactive storybook with mini-activities inside of it, such as :
- Storytelling with user choices for props
- Basic video edition tool
- Sticker collecting
Projects from before Sarbakan was sold to Adrenaline
SALES PITCHES
All designers at Sarbakan had to produce sales pitches while being assigned to other projects at the same time.Here's more details about the sales pitches and the projects which I were assigned to.
Those pitches were streamlined one-pager documents explaining the main features and monetization strategy for game concepts to appear on mobile devices.
Here are some of the brands for which I produced sales pitches:
- Lego Ninjago
- Hot Wheels
- Monster High
- Bandai-Namco's vintage videogames
TVA : FAITES-MOI CONFIANCE
The first project I worked on was the televised game show named "Faites-Moi Confiance", currently broadcast by TVA. The show's production was split between our team at Sarbakan and another team at Bloobuzz, a studio owned by Québecor Media located in ville Saguenay.
I worked on this project as its main game designer, but not from the start of the project (I was the 3rd designer assigned to it). We had to develop 20 mini-games to be played as part of this televised game show. I had the task of creating content for them and balance them.
At some point in the production, one of the games was canned by TVA and I had to design a completely new one to replace it. The game I designed was a concept they called "La Grande Traversée", which was some kind of Frogger derivation.
BATTLE BOTS
This game was about robot battles in which you don't control your character (auto-attack mode à-la RPG). So the gameplay was all about character customization and matchups.
On this project, the client was Bandai-Namco. We were 2 game designers assigned on this project: having more experience with documentation at that point, my collegue was in charge of the writing of the GDD, high level concepts and setting boundaries.
I was assigned to the game balance, all the data of each piece of equipment the game contained, fight durations, matchups, economy and levelling.
A little more about the game: you assemble your robot from a wide variety of parts. Once your robot is fully operational, you just send it to fight agains other players' robots in the arena. After each fight you gain scraps and money to get even more parts and can customize you robot or create new ones.
*Pictures are not from the actual game.
