Loeck Treure | Portfolio

In Depth

Ready, Set, Cook - Force Field - Internship Project

Summary

Project Description: "Arco" is a game developed for Facebook Messenger where you and up to 3 friends can serve hungry customers. The players are forced to communicate to reach high scores and can play within a variety of levels.

The game can only be played once you are inside a Facebook Messenger call with another friend. However, I did not work at Force Field when the game released, but during my internship, the project had several unique features, like using filters so you can wear the same outfit on your webcam view as your character does in the game.

My contributions

I worked on several tasks within the team, and showing flexibility in roles was necessary for the game development as we had a limited amount of people appointed to the project.

Down below I will highlight my biggest contributions more information can be provided on request:

UI design:

During my internship, I had the opportunity to learn from several senior colleagues and get feedback on UI design/processes.
I worked on most of the UI designs in beta stage of the game, including but not limited to: character customization, score screens, onboarding screen, and even the in-game HUD and spatial UI.
My biggest challenge was learning to let go of old designs and start over several times. However, this led to fresh new ideas and positive confirmation from my colleagues.

The final itteration of the score screen UI design.

Set dressed and lit level in Beta stage.

Level Design:

During my time at Force Field, I contributed to the design of most levels existing before my internship ended. Starting from moment sketches to creating the 3D environment and implementing the navmeshes and gameplay elements into the scene.
It was my responsibility to create several prototypes and explore the possibilities of level design in the earlier stages of the project. At a later stage, my focus shifted to finishing levels and making sure the artist set dressing was not obstructing gameplay.

Technical Design:

I got assigned to improve my c# skills by implementing small features and having proper code reviews with my colleagues at Force Field.
Apart from implementation, towards the end of my internship, I also received several tasks related to bug fixing, like food disappearing, customers not showing the correct animation states, etc.
I spend some additional time adding small UX features. For example, the doorbell rings and shows music note particles when a customer enters the restaurant.

A visual bug I managed to fix during my internship.

UI Reachability design for mobile devices.

Additional:

All interns had one day in the week of QA testing and reporting bugs. This led to a better understanding of the bug reporting pipeline in Jira and how to write clear bug reports for programmers.
Aside from PC-based UI design, I got the opportunity to also make a solid mobile experience for the players. I learned about reachability design and the effect different pixel densities have on the UI.
During the Beta stage, Arco planned to use AR filters to dress up the players using their webcams the same as their characters. I worked on the initial prototyping stage using Facebook's Spark AR tool.