BEHIND THE SCENES
Design, UI/UX, Art Direction, Sound & Music, Testing / QA, Packaging, Publishing, IP Management, Analytics.
Design, UI/UX, Art Direction, Sound & Music, Testing / QA, Packaging, Publishing, IP Management, Analytics.
Hide & Secret 4: The Lost World
The latest HOPA from our Hide & Secret Brand. I designed highly intricate puzzle interactions, sophisticated inventory use across multiple Hidden Object scenes, and ensured the narrative was deeply rooted in on-screen characters whose presence and direct interactions evolved dynamically with the storyline. I blended rich storytelling, diverse puzzles, and evolving hidden object mechanics - while overseeing content creation and visual polish with a diverse team of external contributors, including artists dedicated to overpainting.
Impact: It demonstrates my capacity for highly intricate HOPA design, delivering a rich, story-driven experience where every element contributed to the overarching narrative and player journey, while efficiently overseeing scaled production and ensuring overall quality and consistency.
Ghost Encounters: Deadwood
Another HOPA title, crafted with meticulous attention for a distinct, atmospheric experience as we introduced a new IP. We integrated subtle environmental storytelling and sound design to build a pervasive spooky atmosphere. Puzzles were specifically designed to interact with the supernatural elements of the setting, making the environment a character in itself. This involved coordinating external talent, including voice and visual artists for scene overpainting, to achieve the desired artistic and auditory fidelity.
Impact: We established a compelling thematic identity for a new series, highlighting our ability to create immersive worlds through integrated design choices and effective team management for specialized visual and audio production, and engaged with our audience through crowd funding to bring them into the game as special characters!
Redrum: Dead Diary
Our inaugural title as a pure psychological horror Hidden Object experience. I designed an epistolary narrative structure where the story unfolded through fragmented clues and environmental details, requiring players to actively piece together a complex and unsettling truth. This deliberate ambiguity and mature thematic content, alongside evolved HO puzzle modes, defined the game's unique identity, achieved through careful planning of custom assets, sound, music and visual overpainting.
Impact: This game established a niche sub-genre of hidden object psychological horror that resonated strongly with its developing demographic. It achieved "2nd Runner Up Game of the Year" (fan-picked), demonstrating significant player recognition for its innovative approach.
Redrum: Time Lies
Following our successful sale of the Redrum IP, we developed this HOPA sequel for Big Fish Games. Pushing the bounds of the psychological horror HOPA experience, this game evolved the genre by integrating complex inventory systems and interactive maps alongside the narrative structure established in the first title. The deliberate ambiguity and mature thematic content defined its unique identity. This was achieved by orchestrating a dual production pipeline: simultaneously crafting core assets in-house while reaching out to established artists and directing other external talent to polish and nuance the overall visual and auditory atmosphere.
Impact: In a genre that until then often stuck to whimsical mysteries, our collaboration on Redrum: Time Lies went in a decidedly weirder—and wonderfully darker—direction. Working with a major publisher to evolve the psychological horror HOPA format was as unlikely as it was creatively energizing, and gave us a chance to reinvent the series under its new IP owner with "more teeth and fewer teacups".
Hide & Secret 3: Pharaoh's Quest
This title shifted our Hide & Secret brand into its full Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure. I designed the integration of inventory systems and interactive maps, ensuring that items found in hidden object scenes logically led to puzzles on the map. Critically, storytelling was fully merged into the gameplay loop, with narrative progression driven directly by player interaction and puzzle solving. This required a significant expansion of both internal and outsourced art resources, while coordinating across disciplines to ensure that sound, visuals, and the overall mood all supported a coherent sense of mysterious discovery.
Impact: This release marked a significant leap in complexity and player agency, establishing our capability in developing sophisticated HOPA titles by effectively directing a distributed team and ensuring high visual and narrative quality.
Hide & Secret 2: Cliffhanger Castle
We expanded the narratives of our Hide & Secret characters beyond the hidden object core, integrating a more serious, documentary-style storytelling directly into scene transitions. This moved us beyond static comic panels and voiceovers, creating a more immersive narrative that connected players to the lore, without reliance on our developing inventory system. We highlighted a nuanced approach to narrative delivery and began strategically leveraging external artists, including for scene overpainting, to scale up asset production. This adaptable response to a sudden retail opportunity required rapid reprioritization, ensuring we met the available ship date with a high-quality experience for our players.
Impact: This was a key step in enhancing narrative immersion, demonstrating our ability to evolve storytelling techniques within existing gameplay frameworks and manage increased asset demands while upholding visual standards, even under the pressure of sudden timeline changes. These experiences were invaluable for developing adaptability and testing our capabilities under high-pressure scenarios.
Wild West Quest: Gold Rush
We continued innovating within the pure Hidden Object genre by creating new mini-game mechanics and gameplay modes unique to the Wild West theme. I designed contextual mini-games that felt organic to the setting and provided fresh, familiar yet novel gameplay loops. These new modes were developed to be reusable across future titles, with visual refinement achieved through external overpainting.
Impact: Successfully expanded the core hidden object experience through creative mini-game integration, showcasing our ability to deliver engaging variations and build a library of reusable gameplay systems with a high degree of visual polish.
Wild West Quest: Dead or Alive
Building upon the mini-game innovation of the first title in the series, we added more dynamic action elements to diversify pure Hidden Object gameplay. We designed enhanced quick-time event style challenges and thematic mini-games (e.g., enhanced "shootout" sequences) that provided accessible, satisfying breaks from object finding, further enriching the core loop while keeping the pure HO format. This involved directing external artists for various new features, ensuring visual consistency through overpainting.
Impact: This title demonstrated continued innovation within the pure HO genre, proving our design flexibility in adding fresh, engaging mechanics and expanding our repertoire of reusable gameplay modes with a strong visual and thematic presentation.
Hide & Secret: Treasure of Ages
This title marked our debut in the new Hidden Object genre, where we meticulously defined the foundational experience and project architecture for immediate reusability. This was a critical decision, as we recognized retail channels swiftly changing and aimed to capitalize on opportunities before the onset of price erosion and dwindling shelf space. We focused on designing clear, intuitive hidden object scenes with a strong visual identity. The narrative was delivered through comic book panels, keeping the focus on accessible object-finding, without complex inventory or puzzles.
Impact: This strategy allowed us to take a calculated risk and quickly establish a market presence, while accelerating our understanding of player expectations in the nascent hidden object genre.
Lucky Clover
We crafted a pure Hidden Object game with an overtly cheerful, bright, and colorful aesthetic. I designed positive reinforcement and visual cheerfulness throughout the scenes and mini-games, creating a lighthearted, accessible experience that directly contrasted with our darker titles. This required careful curation and direction of external artists, including those for visual overpainting, to maintain a consistent, vibrant style.
Impact: I demonstrated versatility in designing for diverse player demographics and thematic tones, proving the ability to create engaging experiences across the emotional spectrum.
Overall Impact: My experience across these titles demonstrates not just the ability to conceptualize and design, but also the practical skills to bring a complete game to market. Every shipped title represents a journey of problem-solving, adaptability, and a relentless pursuit of quality, often achieved by scaling production through effective management of dozens of external professionals and strategic asset integration and visual polish. This comprehensive background ensures I can contribute effectively at any stage of game development and tackle challenges with creative, viable solutions, especially in translating a beloved IP into an immersive and engaging game.