The Dragon Prince: Xadia
Platform
Mobile
Genre
Action RPG
Tools Used
UE4 and proprietary tools
Duration
June 2021 - Present
Role
Lead Content Designer
Overview
Xadia is a live serive ARPG set in the world of the award winning show The Dragon Prince. Players choose to play as show favorite characters such as Rayla or Soren with each character having their own unique kit of abilities and party role (dps, support, tank). With gameplay broken up across multiple regions of Xadia players level up their heroes, complete quests, and explore the world via procedurally generated expeditions.
Please note all in game videos and images are from an alpha build of the game which is still WIP.
Below you will see a list of my responsibilities on the project and also examples of in engine work that I owned.
Responsibilities:
Lead and mentor an 8-person content team made up of level designers, technical designers, and content designers.
Run multiple weekly playtests to generate feedback and identify action items which gives each designer on my team clear goals for the current development milestone.
Engage studio leadership on a regular basis to align on game vision and design goals.
Communicate game vision and design goals to each of my teams to ensure that missions and mechanics champion the core pillars that have been set out by game team leadership.
Developed and implemented a robust content development pipeline, enhancing functionality and visual consistency across the game.
Own the creation and maintenance of documentation, wireframes, flow graphs, and script snippets that define key features and tools used in our content development process.
Engage with the production team to proactively identify potential obstacles and create action plans to avoid roadblocks in future milestones.
Own and implement major pieces of mission content starting with paper design all the way through to delivery using UE4 and other proprietary tools.
Explore Event: Collect the Packs
Overview
All expeditions in the game are built with path tiles and key POI tiles. Explore expeditions are a content archetype in the game and are what we consider at WS low complexity. This means that at the middle and end key POI tile there are reusable combat vingettes that are quick to port and build across each region.
This is the “Collect Packs” explore event vignette that I ported from another region and hooked up to work in the Moonshadow Forest region on the “Key_Field” tile.
Responsibilities:
Port gameplay from existing template into the key POI tile.
Update the following to re-contextualize for the MSF region.
Art
NPC placement and scripting
Pack actor placement and randomization so that each play through the packs can be in different locations
Encounter placement
Encounter spawning
Level BP scripting
Add MSF region specific illusion mechanics so that illusions could be placed in locations where pack actors can spawn
Outro beat/rewards for completing the vignette
Puzzle Endcap: Activate 3 Switches
Overview
All expeditions generate with the golden path. Branching side paths can spawn off the main path. These side paths end with either a combat or puzzle endcap tile. After completing the combat or puzzle players are rewarded with chests and can use the teleporter to return to the golden path.
This is a puzzle endcap tile I blocked out and scripted. There was no level BP scripting used to make this work. Only the power system the tech design team built was used for all scripting.
Responsibilities:
Tile blockout
Two main goals
Make sure the players see the reward area as they enter they tile
Create a puzzle using the region mechanics provided by the tech design team and make it slightly randomized so that each puzzle solve is a bit different
Puzzle scripting using the power system
