myWatershed
An educational simulation game about saving the Red Side Dace
Made in collaboration with the University of Windsor, hired partway through the project’s development.
A game where players manage volunteers around a small area of the Humber River watershed to protect the Red Side Dace species of fish from going extinct. Players mange volunteer activities to control a variety of aspects on each tile that impact the overall ecosystem from asphalt density to turbidity and insect population. Additionally, every winter the player chooses from a small number of cards that will impact a small area in a greater effect than volunteers.
Roles + Responsibilities
Game designer
Managed and organized sheets to design and balance the card system and deck present in the game based on preexisting design notes. Integrated google sheets with unity for rapid iteration in the card deck.
Tools used
Unity, Excel, Google Sheets, Node.JS
Initial ideation matrix for card effects. An old tool/technique I use for designing new cards and effects based on variables already present in a game/system that can be affected (x axis) and ways they can be interacted with (y axis)
Follow-up of the initial ideation matrix, using a convergence matrix to identify favorite/more appropriate/interesting card effects (top two rows) and use those as prompts for new cards (bottom row).
Card system as it appears in the final game
Takeaways
When creating new systems to interplay with old ones, its important to be up to date with the direction the old ones may be moving forward with at all times. A new system shouldn’t just work in a vacuum, but variables or ways to connect it to old systems might change with playtesting or development. It’s important for any new system developed to be easily iterated either by oneself or by other designers in the future.
Being able to read and fully understand design documents written by other designers from before you came onto a project is absolutely a skill onto itself. Trying to read between what was made note of vs some details that may have been missed or were assumed implicit can be difficult. That’s why it’s important to track questions one has and schedule a short meeting to discuss with other designers for a fuller understanding of the game and its systems before making changes to them.