+ Sensei Skylanders (Skylanders Imaginators)

Senseis are considered the premium toy for this game. So what ways could we make these characters feel awesome, powerful, valuable, and desirable? I personally prototyped and led all major features related to this central design, featuring:

  • Sky-Chi Power - Devastating and highly theatrical attacks with immense spectacle and destruction, unique to Senseis
  • Gong Battles - Unique enemy encounters that provided intense challenges and unique treasure, available only to Senseis
  • Sensei Shrines- Alluring level placements spread throughout the entire game, where Senseis unlock a thrilling, unique cinematic of themselves and learn the Sky-Chi power

(Skip to about 9:00 in this video)

+ Color Theming (Skylanders Imaginators)

In Imaginators, players could create their own Skylanders in-game - and even have them 3d printed! With the hundreds of customization options, it was so easy to create a character that looked completely piecemeal and random - like getting dressed in a closet with no lights!

I prototyped, evangelized, implemented, and standardized a Color Theming system. Color was the single greatest way to easily unify the look of a character. If the colors were coordinated or designed for the player, then their character always looked correct. In that way, while a crocodile tail is usually green, we change the color to adapt to a contextual theme of the created character!

And of course, should the player decide to customize colors individually, we allow them to do that quite easily as well!

+ Drill-X Boss Battle (Skylanders Giants)

Drill-X is definitely one of my proudest accomplishments as a designer. The original constraint for this boss was that it was simply a giant drilling machine at the end of this level. I decided to go off the deep end and make it a rhyming, singing, and autotuned drill robot that sang along to a dubstep beat - with singalong text, of course. This boss battle was large in scope and underwent many iterations with design, art, animation, audio, localization, and cinematics, but I think the final product was amazing.

+ Enemy Showcase (Skylanders franchise)

Unlike a lot of other games, and certainly unlike a lot of other children's games, Skylanders has an enormous roster of enemies that challenge the player in very different ways. I have designed over 30 enemies on this franchise, and here is a sample of some of my favorite ones. The goal of enemy design is to create unique combat setups that engage the player in interesting ways, and each enemy is a building block for that experience. An enemy's design goal is not to frustrate or kill the player, but to allow the player to demonstrate mastery over foes by learning their attacks and patterns. I try to design each enemy to feel powerful, challenging, unique from other enemies - all the while creating attack patterns that are learnable and engaging.

+ UI and Menu Flow (Skylanders Spyro's Adventure) 

Here is the UI and Menu flow of the Skylander Info page, which gives the player details on how powerful and unique their Skylander is, as well as options to customize the Skylander to the player's liking. I scripted this based off of our Animation and UI team's specifications, which were to make as clear a menu as possible that was easy for children to navigate - and to display complexity if ever desired. We also relished in the opportunity to get a closer look at your Skylander, as well as the chance to have fun when browsing hat selections in a clean and fun to look at collection menu.