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Secret Oops! (Apple Arcade)

An innovative AR mobile multiplayer game published on Apple Arcade.

Project description

Secret Oops! is an innovative cooperative local multiplayer Augmented Reality game where players must collaborate to make the protagonist reach the end of the level without being discovered. Each player can intervene on the world action by tapping and disabling traps through the smartphone. Traps might intersecate with each other or require multiple players to be switched off, so all partecipants must collaborate to win.

My contribution

  • Game Designer
  • Level Designer
  • QA Tester

Game Design work

My Game Design contribution to the game involved the creation of game mechanics to be used in levels, which had to be coherent with the game vision. For this purpose, I proposed ideas and concepts during brainstorming session and presented my thoughts to artists, programmers and other designers. Since the project had a version for several Apple platforms, there were many requirements. Among them these were the most relevant:

  • Game mechanics could be played on all sorts of screen size, from iPod to MacTV.

  • Mechanics must not require millimetric precision and could be associated to controller inputs.

  • Game features cannot be enjoyed in AR only - traditional camera controls must be considered.

  • Cross-play implies collaboration between different platforms must be taken in consideration when designing new features.

And others. For this work, I created and mantained multiple prototypes to test mechanics on different platforms. I created this material using Unreal Engine - even though the project was actually built in Unity - as the use of C++ and Blueprints allowed for a faster prototyping process.

Workflow

In general, my workflow included the following steps:

  • Brainstorming ideas.

  • Previsualise concepts.

  • Present concepts to the team.

  • If approved, prototype and test new content.

  • Again, if approved define the mechanics and document it: GDD included interactions among other mechanics, timing, aesthetic, guidelines for use in levels, futher development plans, etc.

  • Plan level layouts including new mechanics.

  • Include the mechanics in the project, tweaking when necessary in Unity.

  • Create levels using in-house tools.

  • Playtest levels for bugfixing and adjustments.

Takeaway from this experience

During this job I have learnt professional pipelines and how to work with others under pressure of deadlines and change of production plans. I have contributed to more that 40 levels and curated the content for the worlds 3-4-5 of the game, of which mechanics have been conceived, prototyped and developed under my supervision. I also worked on minor projects during my times here and worked on concepts for new, unannounced projects.