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I worked on the design of the achievements for the game Rabbids: Alive & Kicking at Ubisoft. The issue was to specify what functions were needed in this party game, and then design and balance correspondanted achivements. I define 4 gameplay axes to build achievements :

1. Exploration, to offer easy objectives and encourage players to discover every game modes and features of the game, and also to reward their progression regularly.

2. Collection, to offer medium and long-terme objectives.

3. Challenge, to offer short-terme objectives, with medium or important difficulty.

4. Nonsense, to reward "raving" actions and streghten the "Rabbids" ton of the game.

Designing achievements

After defining these 4 different functions, I also set 3 criteria for unlocking each achievement in order to vary the situations.

1. Unlocking...● mandatory : Players are certain to unlock the achievement during the

game (or as long as they complete it). For a party game, players unlock achivements by playing every minigames at least one time.

● OR optional : Players are not certain to unlock the achievement although they complete the game. They have to realize one or several specific actions during the game.

2. Unlocking...● immediate : The achievement is unlock just after a specific action or

event.

● OR progressive : The achievement is unlock after a row of several specific actions or events.

3. Unlocking...● overall : The achievement can be unlocked at any time during the

game.

● OR localised : The achievement can be unlock only during a specific moment of the game. In a party game, it should for example be in a specific minigame.

Criteria for unclocking

1st criteria 2nd criteria 3rd criteria Example for a basic adventure game

Exemple pour un party game

Mandatory Immediate OverallCollect a first treasure Play one minigame

Mandatory Immediate Localised

Kill the boss of chapter 6 / Meet the king to reach chapter 2

Play the minigame #06

Mandatory Progressive OverallKill all the ennemis of a chapter / Win 5 challenges

Play every minigames

Mandatory Progressive LocalisedCollect the 3 keys for getting access to the castle

Play the game mode "Every man for himself"

Optional Immediate OverallMake a special attack / Use a healing spell on an ally

Get the gold medal in a minigame

Optional Immediate Localised

Spare the boss of chapter 5 / Find the secret zone of chapter 7

End minigame #12 in 30 seconds or less

Optional Progressive OverallKill 100 ennemis / Reach level 80

Get the gold medal in each minigame

Optional Progressive Localised

Kill 30 ennemis in chapter 4 / Collect all the treasures of chapter 2

Loose 3 times in a row in minigame #13

Exemples of achievements by the 3 criteria

I worked on the writing of the texts for the game Rabbids: Alive & Kicking : name and description of minigames, gamebriefs and tutorial sentences, name and description of achievements... Each of these texts have a specific role to play : identify / detail / teach / warn / etc.

The tone "raving rabbids" has been added to the texts, but with the constraint to not harm their comprehension. Familiar phrases, puns and other comic sentences mustn't overshadow the message of each text. This tack occupy my colleagues and me during all the production. A lot of adjustments have been realised following testing.

This task was all the more delicate that we also have to work with the localisation team on the adaptation of the texts in ten languages. Litteral translations couldn't worked, espacially with the "raving rabbids" tone. I sometimes had to guide the tranlators to adapt the texts. We also had to trust them and their creativity to imagine the puns to specific for a language.

I also worked for the adaptation on iPhone of Egypt 2 and Atlantis 3 at Tetraedge Games. It was not simple ports, but a real work of update and adaptation. My role was to rework the level design with 2 strong constraints :

● The plateform : The iPhone brings tactil interactions, ideal for a point-&-clic like an adventure game. But the information has to be adpated to a screen clearly less smaller than for a PC.

● The target : Assigned to a wide audience, these adaptations mustn't put the player in a situation too complex or too long to overcome. Players should be able to progress during short game sessions (a few minutes). In this perspective, puzzles needed to be simplified (less steps, less items...). Players also need constant support to easy continue the game (goal and trail to follow reminders, clues...).

To summarize, any player should be able to progress in the game during a 5 minutes session.

Adaptation of an adventure game

Before reviewing the level design of both games, I needed a globale vision, so I played the games a first time on PC. The fact I had never played these game before was a good opportunity : I could see them with new eyes, some not used to "old" fashion adventure games (even if I played several of them). After completed the game, I noted my first impressions of player, with "plus" (what features made their strengh on those days) and "minus" (what was exceeded in terme of game design).Then, I played the game for a second time with the objective to explore it deeply, experimenting every levels, interactions and solutions. During this exercise, I drew maps representing all the warps of each level and the connections between them (see the exemple for an apartment). I also report every component present in each warp (characters, items, obstacles, puzzles, dialogues, animations...). The goal : dissect each level to have a syntetic reading of them. Once the map was completed, the programmers could clearly see what were the components, at which warp did they belong, and how they interact each other.

Once I completed all the maps (almost an hundred), I began the adaptation work : I played the game one more time, but trying to improve the player experience. At each steps, I describe what should be conserved, what should be simplified and how, and sometimes what should be excluded. I choose to present my impression as a critical walkthrough with level design propals. Once these ones validated, they could be integrated by simply following the maps updated with my them.

* warp : Fixed stage with a 360° view on precalculated 3D sets (like in Google Street View).

Level design from a level of Egypte IIEach square represents a warp, and each line represents a connection between two warps. Player can use these lines to travel from warp to warp. The Items the player can pick are represented by a trapezium with a number. The other interactives items that can't be picked are represented by a trapezium with a letters.

Level design from a level of Atlantis III.Green circles represent transitions through cut scenes. Orange octagones represent conditions. If an octagone is placed on a line bewteen two warps, it works as an obstacle. The player can't use this conection until the condition has been released.

I have worked on the organization of the menus of the game Rabbids: Alive & Kicking. The goal was to design a flow that allows players to quickly make meaning choices to access the game using the Kinect camera and its new genra of interactions.

In order to build an intuitive flow, it was necessary to define an architecture that can be repeated at each tree level without having to make specific menus (too disturbing for the player and too expensive in production time). After several user tests, it was the right lateral menu with vertial scrolling that has been deciced. Players could select with their right hand, and cancel with their left hand. At last, we had to select the minimum of informations in order to display it on the screen well organized.

● Advanced skills

● Smaterrings

PORTFOLIO2008-2010

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