WHAT IS ASHES TO ASHES?
A Third Person, Weird Western Action Adventure
The player takes on the role of a gunslinger who has risen from the grave to solve their own murder. They harness the powers of the spirit world to enhance their abilities and fight off forces trying to put them six feet under again. Gameplay should be quick and the spirit powers available to the player should allow them to progress with their own playstyle.
My Role
Lead Designer, Product Owner
For this project, I served as the Lead Designer, and Product Owner. This meant that I not only had my responsibilities as a designer on TEAM BEANS, but also carried the responsibilities of managing the vision and direction of the product. This included meeting with all disciplines on the team, facilitating creative and technical discussions, and planning for our production cycle alongside our producer.
My Contributions
FrankenBandit
Modular bandit variance
Cinematics
Level overview, cutscenes and trailer
Foliage Grayboxing
Cost efficient level design
Large Level Design
Large landscapes, engaging levels
Mission Based Bossfight
Low-Risk multi-stage mechanics
Combat Game Loop
Shields, hexes, and headshots
Gunplay Game Feel
Satisfying Hexes, and headshots
Bugfixing
Diagnosing and eliminating
Responsibilities
1
Team Leadership
Over the course of the project, I have been in multiple leadership positions. As lead designer, responsibilities included overseeing the design team, aiding wherever I could, helping to assign and create tasks for members on the team, and providing quality control for systems and features. As product owner, I had to make challenging decisions alongside my producers about content. Additionally, I worked closely with members of all disciplines to provide feedback, and help unify the vision of the game.
"Connor approaches leadership from an interdisciplinary lens that lets him connect with all areas of development from art to narrative to gameplay. He communicates needs and expectations for the project with clarity and thoughtfulness. As a product owner and lead, he allowed room for creativity while also helping to guide our work towards a unified vision for the game."
-Molli Shuker, Narrative Lead for Ashes to Ashes
2
Technical Systems Design
I worked closely with the design, and engineering team to create engaging systems, levels, and cinematics to be tied together in gameplay. I worked with the shooting and hexing systems, where I tweaked values, managed hex balance. I worked with cinematic tools to create sweeping shots to help fit the spaghetti western aesthetic. Utilizing artists props, and Unreal 5's new foliage tools, I created detailed bock outs for our world across multiple large levels. I worked alongside tools programmers to utilize their tools to create missions, levels, and other content.
"Connor has the unique ability to take existing systems and extract the most fun possible from them. Often times he'll use a system in a way I'd never think of to create a completely new gameplay mechanic that significantly adds to the appeal of the game."
-Steve Annunziato, Tech Director for Ashes to Ashes
3
Creative Problem Solving
I helped provide solutions for scope problems, so we wouldn't have to outright cut other team members work, rather, find a solution that was efficient, and low risk.
FrankenBandit: When faced with the challenge of not having enemy models, or AI for that matter, I created the Frankenbandit system, allowing us to use basic models that Unreal already had to offer, parenting items of clothing, weapons, etc. to provide a modular enemy system, where we could swap out any piece of clothing. This system was later applied to the character, when we determined that we were running behind, and risked cutting the character model.
Bossfight: When faced with the problem of adding a boss fight, without increasing AI scope, I pivoted towards using the modular mission system, creating wave, damage, and other objectives to create a string of easy to follow stages for a final encounter against the boss.
Levels: We wanted to create large, visually stunning levels, without creating copious amounts of tasks for artists, level designers, and others, so I worked to use the UE5 foliage tool as much as I could when blocking out levels. This made it very easy to create vast landscapes, placing rocks, crates, and buildings with ease.
"I've worked on a lot of projects with Connor leading various roles. When it comes to creative decision-making, he's the one I would often go to. He is very good at the concept of 'scoping down without cutting content' which is seen commonly in our project Ashes to Ashes."
-Maliki LaForce, Lead Producer for Ashes to Ashes
