Joker's Revenge
Lead Game and Level Designer
Joker's Revenge was one of the most ambitious projects that I worked on. Think of the game as Like a Dragon: Yakuza's turn-based combat meets Deck building elements. I was responsible for handling the game documents, managing the team, world building, Narrative design, designing the systems and Pitching the game.
GAMEPLAY VIDEO
PROJECT BREAKDOWN
Project Goals
Other Responsibilities
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Managing the timelines and the team.
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Pitching the game at college.
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Keeping all the documents up to date.
Our team's primary goal during the time we worked on it was to create a working prototype of our game.​
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After making the working prototype, we were selected to showcase our game at our College's booth at the India Game Developer Conference, in 2023.
Primary Responsibilities
Design
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Designing the core gameplay loop.
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Writing the narrative for the demo.
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Designing the supporting systems.
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Level layouts.
Design
Turn-Based Combat
The unique gameplay of Joker's Revenge is supported by its deck-based combat.​
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Our primary goal was to make a turn-based game, which would appeal to casual audiences as well as the people who enjoy traditional turn-based JRPGs.
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To search and understand the balance of how to create something that appeals to the masses, I led research on titles like Like a Dragon: Yakuza 7 and Persona 5.
To make the combat interesting and fit the narrative, we divided the ability into 4 distinct abilities, which were:
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Trickster: These are cards where the players can reflect enemy attacks to themselves, mimic their actions, or even use their attacks to heal themselves. These are unlocked from the beginning.
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Maniac (Clubs): These are attack-heavy cards. These attacks are so powerful that they will have higher move costs as well and they might cost player health as well.
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Intoxicator (Hearts): These are effects cards, which the player can use to either heal themselves or cast an attack over a specific area. These have effects on some moves.
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Royal Guard (Diamond): These are defense-heavy cards. These can be used to defend against enemy attacks over some set time/moves. These can be used to cast defense over the entire party or just the jokers themselves. Effective against boss battles.
Royal Guard deck.
Trickster deck.
Maniac deck.
After some feedback and subsequent playtesting, we adjusted the total number of moves per turn to 3.
Each card has its move cost, the higher the damage or effect on battle -> the higher the move cost. For example, there is a Trickster card that reflects 100% of all enemy damage. This can be a game changer if the enemy decides to use a strong attack, hence it costs 2 moves.
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Apart from this, the Maniac deck also has an HP cost. Since these are supposed to be the strongest attacks, they also cost a certain % of players' HP to emphasize the impact of those moves.
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To appeal to the casual players as well, we added some interactive elements while doing attacks. For example, players can have a quick time event while playing intoxicator cards to maximize the attack effectiveness or Maniac deck has a button mashing mini-game to increase the damage over some quick seconds.
Level Design
For this prototype, we decided to bring 'Heart Kingdom' to life. In the main game, this would be the first kingdom that the player encounters.
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Using Mindmaps and flowcharts, I started to blockout the level for Hearts Kingdom.
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Collected level references from other games like Genshin Impact, Skyrim.
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Wrote detailed documents for level props and environment feel.
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Drew some concepts to visualize the kingdom.
A rough mindmap showing major city areas
To make the level easy to understand, I made sure to include prominent landmarks such as huge castle and statue, which served few purposes:
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Making it easier for the player to orient themselves, when lost.
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Keeping the final objective of the player right in front of him, to make them curious enough to keep playing.
Note how the castle and the city centre is always visible to the player, irrespective of where he might be.