During pre-production, I was responsible for a large part of the game design, particularly iterating on various camera systems :

• The exploration camera, active when the player is not in a combat phase, providing a view suited to navigation and environmental discovery.

• The combat camera, designed to keep all enemies targeting the player within its field of view, preventing any surprise attacks. This was implemented by our programmer and tech game designer.

• The point-of-interest camera, which subtly draws the player's attention toward an interactive element in the environment. This camera was not kept, as the game does not contain enough points of interest to justify it, and its integration would have required development time we did not have.

I also worked on several systems related to world progression :

• The fog of war, indicating to the player which areas have not yet been explored.

• The reincarnation of the former avatar, offering the possibility of facing the player's previous build in combat. This system was not retained due to its development cost and the complexity of the associated AI.

• The dynamic difficulty system, which evolves according to the player's progression.

During the production phase, I focused more on refining and optimising the camera systems.

In terms of level design, the map operates with biomes, each assigned to a faction (fire, air, water, earth). When a biome is cleared — meaning all enemies in the area have been defeated — a stele lights up, indicating to the player that a perk can be collected. (The perk system is explained by Nicolas in his portfolio → Portfolio - Nicolas Jean Victor)

Boss biomes are distributed across the entire map, always in the same location. The question arose as to whether the boss locations could be randomised at each run, but this option was deemed too costly to implement.

Another question regarding bosses was whether it would be possible to face them without having collected any perks beforehand. It was established that yes, this would be possible, but it would represent a greater challenge for the player, while remaining achievable.

Since the game is an open world with an emphasis on exploration, a hidden alphabetical writing system has been integrated into each biome, serving as a form of meta-progression. Transitional zones have also been implemented, where the player can encounter monster skirmishes, shops using soft currency, as well as hidden secrets.

The player always spawns in the same location, but certain biomes contain new spawn points that the player can choose, at the end of a run, as their starting point for the next game.

I am also working alongside a colleague on the game feel, in order to make Godling more enjoyable to play and to improve the player's comprehension, both visually and sonically.

To get started, we created a signs and feedbacks table, detailed enough to allow us to properly visualise the intended experience. In each table, we tried to include as much relevant information as possible: when the feedback activates, when it stops, when it continues, what the desired effect is, what sound is expected, whether a character animation is involved, whether there is a screen shake or a hit frame, whether there is a link between the feedback and the UI, and whether controller vibration is planned.

The more detail we include, the easier it is to project ourselves into the player's experience.

Once the signs and feedbacks table is sufficiently complete, we create a list for the artists, so they can produce the VFX or animations we require. The same process is applied with our sound designer.

Finally, to begin visualising the result and to prepare for the integration of the real assets into the game engine, I placed placeholders on the character.