Louis Francis
I'm a Game Designer with a handful of Game Art and Generalist skills interested in focusing on Mechanics Design and UX Design. I've been learning Game Design and Development since 2019 via two Certificate III's, a Diploma and an Advanced Diploma, and am proud to be a graduate of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment in Adelaide, South Australia as of 2021.
I'll be updating this website with projects I create to practice and build my skills, while staying open to any opportunities, entry level or otherwise, that come my way.
Core Design Skills
Mechanics Design
User Experience Design
Lighting & Post Processing
3D Modeling & UV / Texturing
Mechanics Design has always been the single most interesting part of Game Development to me. I've been lucky enough to lead the design on a few mechanics in one project. I have a deep understanding of how to make a Mechanic satisfying for the player to repeatedly engage with, how mechanics should interact with the world and each other, and how to balance the player's attention between multiple mechanics.
UX Design is something I've actually engaged with a lot in the past without knowing it. I'm skilled at wireframing, I know how to plan and path menus and have orchestrated and performed A/B tests but I was unaware they all fell under the umbrella of User Experience. Since then I've been building my UX skills.
I've always been impressed at how much good Lighting can improve the feel or quality of a level by making covered or clustered areas more visible, tying elements together with temperature or matching/contrasting an art style or aesthetic. I've endeavored to be familiar and adept with both Unity and Unreal Engine's deprecated, current and planned future lighting systems.
As a Designer in team projects I've often handled the communication between Design and Art as I can understand their work and workload, allowing me to translate for other Designers, make in-scope requests and comprehend their issues and difficulties. I am also capable enough to complete generalist or prototype/concept Art work; Model and Texture items and objects or terrain and buildings as well as implement them in-engine using prefabs and material graphs.
Experience & Project History
The Soul Tower
(Global Game Jam 2022)
Vibe City
(AIE Year 2 Major Project 2021)
VR Blackjack
(AIE Year 2 VR Module 2021)
MidKnight
(AIE Year 1 Major Project 2020)
I signed up to be a Game Designer for The Soul Tower, a pixel art 2.5D beat-em-up. I contributed to concepting and game mechanics during the planning phase and while the GDD was being written, but unfortunately was unable to develop in-engine due to severe computer issues. I was however able to aid our programmers over Discord, both software engineers, in the few moments they found themselves unfamiliar with Unity or Unity specific functions.
Vibe City is an online multiplayer game focusing on fast flung 5v5 battles across the three diverse districts of Vibe City. I was one of two Game Designers in our team of 8 and was primarily responsible for the design, iteration and testing (A/B Testing & Closed/Open Beta Testing) of the Grappling Hook; it's behavior, controls and interactions with the world. I also designed the Construction District level, worked on the game's Lighting, set up Post Processing volumes and effects, drew concept maps for the game world, and implemented some of the Menu UI elements and their arrangement alongside Generalist work with the rest of the team. The project lasted for 15 weeks with scrum meetings fortnightly.
VR Blackjack was a short, re-playable experience developed over 4 weeks in a randomly assembled team of 7 as one of two Designers. After each contributing to a GDD, I primarily focused on Level Design and Lighting; implementing Textures and Models from the Artists, setting up Materials and Post Processing effects to get the game looking as nice as possible while running well on an Oculus Go.
MidKnight was my first major project in a team of 10 as one of three Game Designers. I primarily focused with the project's Vision Holder on combat Mechanics in the early stages, but the bulk of my work was Level Design alongside Lighting, implementing Models and Textures, Post Processing, a few UI Design concepts and Generalist work.
