XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Responsibilities:

• Design, construction, and scripting of 33 missions (1/3 of map content)
• Design input and balancing of core systems: Combat, Leveling, Multiplayer, and others
• Design of modular art kits: buildings, vehicles, alien architecture
• Design and ownership of level design prototyping tools

The core mechanic of XCOM missions is squad tactics, and we designed our environments from the start with these in mind. Each space has a minimum cover density to support a base level of combat at any location. There's also a minimum space present between cover objects, to improve readability from the top-down camera. Where we could predict the locations of combat, we included tactical features to support each possible soldier type: height advantages for snipers, flanking paths for assault soldiers, "stepping stone" cover for a direct approach, and much more. Our core gameplay goal: fun tactics anywhere, with any enemies, and any soldiers. 

Fictionally, XCOM takes place in the modern day of the real world. As an alien invasion simulator, we felt it was important that players be able to relate to the locations being invaded. This added an extra wrinkle to the level design, since tactically interesting spaces often aren't very realistic! Much of our focus as designers went into supporting the needs of both tactics and realism. 

Another design goal was that our environments stay readable from both top-down and 3rd-person camera angles. XCOM soldier abilities are handled with an "over-the-shoulder" camera, and much of our work went into setting up shots that would look good and make sense from either perspective.

Please contact me for more information about my work.