My Portfolio for the Year 2011

1. PORTFOLIO 2011
> PORTFOLIO 2008-2010 <

2. Designing achievements
I worked on the design of the achievements for the game Rabbids: Alive &
Kicking at Ubisoft. The issue was to specify what functions were needed in
this party game, and then design and balance correspondanted
achivements. I define 4 gameplay axes to build achievements :
1. Exploration, to offer easy objectives and encourage players to discover
every game modes and features of the game, and also to reward their
progression regularly.
2. Collection, to offer medium and long-terme objectives.
3. Challenge, to offer short-terme objectives, with medium or important
difficulty.
4. Nonsense, to reward "raving" actions and streghten the "Rabbids" ton of
the game.

3. Criteria for unclocking
After defining these 4 different functions, I also set 3 criteria for unlocking
each achievement in order to vary the situations.
1. Unlocking...
● mandatory : Players are certain to unlock the achievement during the
game (or as long as they complete it). For a party game, players unlock
achivements by playing every minigames at least one time.
● OR optional : Players are not certain to unlock the achievement
although they complete the game. They have to realize one or several
specific actions during the game.
2. Unlocking...
● immediate : The achievement is unlock just after a specific action or
event.
● OR progressive : The achievement is unlock after a row of several
specific actions or events.
3. Unlocking...
● overall : The achievement can be unlocked at any time during the
game.
● OR localised : The achievement can be unlock only during a specific
moment of the game. In a party game, it should for example be in a
specific minigame.

4. Exemples of achievements by the 3 criteria
Example for a basic Exemple pour un party
1st criteria 2nd criteria 3rd criteria
adventure game game
Collect a first treasure Play one minigame
Mandatory Immediate Overall
Kill the boss of chapter 6 / Play the minigame #06
Meet the king to reach chapter
Mandatory Immediate Localised 2
Kill all the ennemis of a Play every minigames
Mandatory Progressive Overall chapter / Win 5 challenges
Collect the 3 keys for getting Play the game mode
Mandatory Progressive Localised access to the castle "Every man for himself"
Make a special attack / Use a Get the gold medal in a
Optional Immediate Overall healing spell on an ally minigame
Spare the boss of chapter 5 / End minigame #12 in 30
Find the secret zone of seconds or less
Optional Immediate Localised chapter 7
Kill 100 ennemis / Reach level Get the gold medal in each
Optional Progressive Overall 80 minigame
Kill 30 ennemis in chapter 4 / Loose 3 times in a row in
Collect all the treasures of minigame #13
Optional Progressive Localised chapter 2

5. I worked on the writing of the texts for the game Rabbids: Alive & Kicking :
name and description of minigames, gamebriefs and tutorial sentences,
name and description of achievements... Each of these texts have a specific
role to play : identify / detail / teach / warn / etc.
The tone "raving rabbids" has been added to the texts, but with the constraint
to not harm their comprehension. Familiar phrases, puns and other comic
sentences mustn't overshadow the message of each text. This tack occupy
my colleagues and me during all the production. A lot of adjustments have
been realised following testing.
This task was all the more delicate that we also have to work with the
localisation team on the adaptation of the texts in ten languages. Litteral
translations couldn't worked, espacially with the "raving rabbids" tone. I
sometimes had to guide the tranlators to adapt the texts. We also had to trust
them and their creativity to imagine the puns to specific for a language.

6. Adaptation of an adventure game
I also worked for the adaptation on iPhone of Egypt 2 and Atlantis 3
at Tetraedge Games. It was not simple ports, but a real work of update and
adaptation. My role was to rework the level design with 2 strong constraints :
● The plateform : The iPhone brings tactil interactions, ideal for a point-&-
clic like an adventure game. But the information has to be adpated to a
screen clearly less smaller than for a PC.
● The target : Assigned to a wide audience, these adaptations mustn't
put the player in a situation too complex or too long to overcome. Players
should be able to progress during short game sessions (a few minutes). In
this perspective, puzzles needed to be simplified (less steps, less items...).
Players also need constant support to easy continue the game (goal and
trail to follow reminders, clues...).
To summarize, any player should be able to progress in the game during a 5
minutes session.

7. Before reviewing the level design of both games, I needed a globale vision,
so I played the games a first time on PC. The fact I had never played these
game before was a good opportunity : I could see them with new eyes, some
not used to "old" fashion adventure games (even if I played several of them).
After completed the game, I noted my first impressions of player, with "plus"
(what features made their strengh on those days) and "minus" (what was
exceeded in terme of game design).
Then, I played the game for a second time with the
objective to explore it deeply, experimenting every
levels, interactions and solutions. During this
exercise, I drew maps representing all the warps of
each level and the connections between them (see
the exemple for an apartment). I also report every
component present in each warp (characters,
items, obstacles, puzzles, dialogues,
animations...). The goal : dissect each level to have
a syntetic reading of them. Once the map was
completed, the programmers could clearly see
what were the components, at which warp did they
belong, and how they interact each other.
Once I completed all the maps (almost an hundred), I began the adaptation
work : I played the game one more time, but trying to improve the player
experience. At each steps, I describe what should be conserved, what
should be simplified and how, and sometimes what should be excluded. I
choose to present my impression as a critical walkthrough with level design
propals. Once these ones validated, they could be integrated by simply
following the maps updated with my them.
* warp : Fixed stage with a 360° view on precalculated 3D sets (like in
Google Street View).

8. Level design from a level of Egypte II
Each square represents a warp, and each line represents a connection
between two warps. Player can use these lines to travel from warp to warp.
The Items the player can pick are represented by a trapezium with a number.
The other interactives items that can't be picked are represented by a
trapezium with a letters.

9. Level design from a level of Atlantis III.
Green circles represent transitions through cut scenes. Orange octagones
represent conditions. If an octagone is placed on a line bewteen two warps, it
works as an obstacle. The player can't use this conection until the condition
has been released.

10. I have worked on the organization of the menus of the game Rabbids: Alive &
Kicking. The goal was to design a flow that allows players to quickly make
meaning choices to access the game using the Kinect camera and its new
genra of interactions.
In order to build an intuitive flow, it was necessary to define an architecture
that can be repeated at each tree level without having to make specific
menus (too disturbing for the player and too expensive in production time).
After several user tests, it was the right lateral menu with vertial scrolling that
has been deciced. Players could select with their right hand, and cancel with
their left hand. At last, we had to select the minimum of informations in order
to display it on the screen well organized.

11. ● Advanced skills
● Smaterrings
LINKEDIN
PROFILE
PORTFOLIO
2008-2010
CONTACT :
h.frenoy@gmail.com