Once we finished the last DLCs for Shadow of War and I had time to take in the scale of what the strike team accomplished I found myself wanting to look for the next step in how Players could shape their game stories. State of Decay had been a game I heard great things about and enjoyed friends playing it. I interviewed with Undead Labs and thought what they were doing with State of Decay 2 could expand to in the future I was intrigued. I started working with them only a couple months before SoD2 shipped, and I found this to work out pretty well. I was able to learn their proprietary systems while fixing bugs and gaining experience without having a full design to carry.
One of the biggest blessings when working at Undead Labs was working with Leah Rivera, one of the best designers I’ve met. Day one, I stole her habit of having a small white board on her desk. Seriously, it’s one of the best tactics for a designer when brainstorming with their team. Leah taught me how to use SoD2’s unique quest system and every where it would interface. I’m sure it was challenging to train a new designer while also fixing bugs during the hectic time of getting the game out the door. Leah easily handled it all without breaking a sweat.
Daybreak was a DLC for State of Decay where Players were Red Talon soldiers defending against seven waves of zombies, upon survival they would earn special weapons and equipment. I drew on my time on Black Ops Zombies to collaborate with wave difficulty balancing and fixing bugs that came up. The next major update was Zedhunter, that introduced new missions, weapons like the crossbow, and ways to survive. One of the few missions I was able to design from the ground up is in this update. During this DLC I started bugging Brian Giaime to teach me SoD2’s unique loot system. It was a challenging system to get my head around and I enjoyed that opportunity. I gained new insights in how design tools could be more user friendly.
Heartland was the largest DLC for SoD2 and very ambitious. Where SoD2 gives much of the narrative to the Player’s imagination, Heartland chose to revisit SoD’s roots as a single cohesive story. Players are returned to Trumbull Valley, where two pairs of bespoke characters have arrived with their own motives that merge into a lore cliffhanger. During this DLC I was tasked with using a new enemy type, the Plague Wall, and designing the final parts of the story. This story line start with Players being introduced to the Plague Wall at a crashed plane. This gave us an opportunity to give Players a controlled space to learn the behaviors of the Wall. After that Players will meet up with the the Captain and Doctor pair for a few more missions leading them to the plague ridden neighborhood in the south. Within that neighborhood is the Gauntlet, a layered arrangement of Plague Walls that act as gates. The intent of the Gauntlet was to have Players finish off one wall, leave to resupply, and return after they had rebuilt their strength. I felt the Gauntlet allowed me to combine my experience from previous projects, like using pieces to solve a puzzle.