Megan Mathews:

From UsTwo games – small team of 30, but have worked on lots of popular games, inc collab with netflix games 

Her overview:

• Path into games
• Day to day of game designer 
• Design tools
• Portfolio tips
• The power of networking
• Key takeaways

Before uni –

• Made flash games, minecraft maps for fun

At uni –

• Competed in loads on game jams while at uni, and got her into the comfy game genre and the people in that community
• During this time she wanted to be a concept artist but started shifting towards a game designer

First steps into industry –

• While developing a game someone reached out and offered a summer internship program 
• Also someone else who gave her a talk offered her another junior intern position 
• First intern at code coven – junior designer 
• Second at playtra games – level designer

This burnt her out, stepped back –

• Started doing freelance in environment design and created a game with a team and pitched it to different investors at carrotcake
• The game they tried pitching was Botany Manor and it wasn’t successful in pitching but was added to portfolio
• But a company she tried to get hired for connected her to some other companies that have positions and one of those companies was UsTwo Games studio 
• She got hired to be a junior game designer and was mainly because she was genuine, strong portfolio, strong understanding of current game and genre, and confident in answering design-based questions
• She has now been promoted as a mid level designer and has been there for 4 years

Design at UsTwo Games –

What she actually does –

• Small company with 30 company so her role involves doing alot more job responsibilities than at bigger companies 

How they build games:

• Concepting
• Prototyping
• Pre-prodcution
• Prodcution
• Post Launch 

For her most recent game – prototyped mechanics, used miro – storyboards, and then after that prototyped it in engine 

Large part of her job is level design, she starts off in miro drawing out levels, enemies, rewards. And then creates white boxes in engine ti see how they flow of the game would go.

Additnionaly, more recently shes been doing puzzle design & implementation, again same process starting on paper, or based on concept / mechanic. And how to turn these concepts and mechiancis into a puzzle, and its mainly white boxing, and testing to see how things play out.

She also has to do progression, balance, and game structure. Looking at how players will play them game and making sure players can play the game without getting stuck, being to hard etc. So this in recent game was her making sure to balance levels of enemies compared to the average player level when they meet. So its mapping out when the game gets hard and when its easier in an excel graph. 

Whilst doing this all, she has to do alot of playtesting and understanding data. So she looks at feedback, and looks at any commun things, when it happens, solutions for this feedback, and is it worth it? Alot of this involves translating what the feedback says compared to what it actually means, so if someones says ‘this games is hard’ it trying to figure out what actually does this mean, the levels are hard? Enemies are hard etc. 

Partly she was alot of controls & UX. so she worked on how the mechanics translate from being on mobile to being on the console, pc etc. So looking at how to translate the feel of the mechanics on phone to how it feels on an xbox / ps controller. 

More specifically, she looks at accessibility. Looking at what other games are doing for accessibility and advocating to implement same features in her games. Making sure shes up to date on accessibility acts and being up to date within the games they release. How to be more accessible to everyone. Takes courses on accessibility and then showcasing what shes learnt to her team to make sure everyones on the same page. 

Design tools at Ustwo:

• Cool Boards: helps to explore a variety of ideas and what the team are excited about by ranking them as a team from super cool on one axis and super risky on other axis. Good for seeing where everyones ideas are at and excited about.
• Crazy 8s: workshop style for a team. Each person has 8 different thoughts on certain subject so concerns, mechanics, where game is going etc, after all done everyone together votes on whats the most important. 
• Paper prototypes: Turning levels into physical level and seeing how it plays out immediately instead of waiting for it to be programmed. Shows the problems that may arrive before development to get fixed
• One on one collaborations: 15 min conversation over the phone for feedback or help, or conversations in the studio for the same thing. 
• Show and tell feedback: as team expands, coolboards was getting harder to do. Its like show and tell, bring something liek level to the team and the they would then give feedback in post it notes, green, yellow and red. Green positive, yellow confused, red concerns. Great to get a range of feedback and opinions on how different specialties see the idea, programmers to artists

Portfolio Tips:

Specific for being game designer at indie studio:

Treat portfolio like designing a level. Looking at how the player goes through the level. Making sure to guide the viewer from start to end making sure its in control and they can see everything, understand everything and they can retain the information. Just like a level design

Home page, simple, just give the ability to click into the key projects, change depending on the role you apply for. Simple info on about me. 

Each project, have the depth but make it visually clear on what the project started as, where it went etc.

The project page, has every project on it with summaries of each project and photo of it.

What to include in proejcts:

• Diagrams
• Greybox.whitebox screenshots
• Gameplay gifs with description
• List what you did not the team did 
• Postmortems/retrospectives
• Keep it short an concise – use bullet points

Page example:

Project status- role, link and description

Gameplay trailer

Key areas of work that i completed 

Design sections – deep-dive breakdown into puzzle design

Dos 

• Show appropriate work, how you did it, design process
• Explain what the project was and where is it
• Clearly explain your roles and what you did
• Include annotated images
• Write positively

Dont

• Show inappropriate work
• Talk negatively about others in team
• Post images with no explanation
• Write an essay, if it takes to long to read they wont 

Think: what designer are you?

• What motivates you
  • Do you make worlds
  • Are you always drawing characters
  • Have you been writing stories 
  • How are you prototyping? With code?
• These are passions and skills. This is what you need to portray in portfolio 

The Power of networking:

• Just talking to people at conventions 
• Find friends who are in the same field 
• Don’t just find professionals make sure to network with students etc
• Doesn’t need to be serious, just casual convos

Key takeaways:

Look after yourselves, it can be tough sometimes

No one will have the same path

Be open minded, take opportunities that suit you. Goals can change

Network! Get to know your peers