Skylanders: SuperChargers

Key Tasks:

At the start of the project, I prototyped various game mechanics that would be large enough to define a full 30 minute level. It was a period of rapid 3 day prototypes to see if the mechanics could hold weight. This definition of weight was defined by how well the mechanic could be expanded upon. For instance, if the mechanic was a pulley, the question would be how this could be used as a platforming challenge, a combat challenge, and if it could be utilized to combine those two lessons into an even harder challenge. Since the game was an action-adventure RPG, much of the question was how a mechanic could fully envelop the player's own toolsets and build upon them.

Afterwards, I wrapped up the vehicle sections for various levels, making each vehicle section relate to their level's particular game mechanic. One of the levels involved the entire level rotating back and forth, so we integrated the land vehicle section to involve individual rotating sections that all linked up with one another which ended up looking like you were on a dragon's back. That's all how we ended up with this dragon's back sequence. In addition, I took ownership of the level Gadfly Glades and took that to its final state. I worked with the previous owner of the level, sought the leads and level artist, and created a plan on how to move forward.

Towards the tail end of the project, I worked on extensive optimization passes in conjunction with engineers and the level artists as Gadfly Glades was the second most expensive level in SuperChargers. Over a period of three weeks, we were able to reduce Gadfly Glades to be one of the cheapest main levels in SuperChargers while retaining much of the same look and feel.