Rise From Ruin is a third-person, character-action game where players become the BEAST — a colossal, unstoppable monster tasked with defending a frozen, post-apocalyptic city from chaotic invading forces. The gameplay centers around bombastic combat and cinematic battles, pushing players to harness their destructive power while navigating a densely packed urban environment.
As Lead Game Designer, I was responsible for maintaining a unified design vision, facilitating communication between focus teams, and driving our level design efforts through rapid iteration and hands-on engine work.
Our design approach was centered around iteration, clarity, and cohesion. Rather than building out multiple levels, we focused all our design energy into one core space — a single, evolving level that would serve as the ultimate testbed for gameplay, mechanics, and narrative context.
This allowed us to:
We began by sketching out the city concept — a sprawling, sector-based metropolis fortified by massive walls. These early diagrams helped us establish lanes for combat, zones for AI interactions, and key traversal paths. By producing the initial blockout early in the sprint, we created space for feedback and iteration before committing to full asset development.
Our initial in-engine blockout revealed key issues:
To address this, we lowered the walls, improved visibility, and began shaping traversal zones — later referred to as "highways" — where the player could move more fluidly through the environment.
We initially planned to use procedural generation to populate the city with buildings and details. However, the complexity of implementation outweighed the benefit, and I led a spike team to manually prototype the city layout. This allowed us to test gameplay flow without waiting on procedural tools — a decision that proved critical when we ultimately scaled back procedural systems.
Climbing was an early traversal mechanic that complemented the vertical scale of our level. However, as development progressed, it became clear that our root-motion animation system couldn't support climbing to a level of polish we needed. We made the tough call to cut the mechanic, and restructured the level to focus on grounded movement, increasing visibility and streamlining gameplay flow.
With a playable version of the level, we conducted extensive playtests — over 50 testers including AAA developers and peers from Rockstar. Feedback was unanimous:
The level felt too large, players were overwhelmed, and engagement dropped.
In response, we cut the level in half, which led to major improvements:
This pivot became a defining moment in our design process.
As our systems came online, I formed a collaborative spike team with two artists and another designer to bring the level to visual and mechanical completion. We used orange zones to denote gameplay-critical areas, coordinated with artists to ensure visual clarity, and finalized building placements for both aesthetic and functional purposes.
We paid special attention to:
After rigorous polish passes (and removal of more floating trees than I’d like to admit), the level felt alive, intentional, and deeply connected to gameplay.
As the Lead Designer of an 18-person team, my role extended far beyond level layout. I served as a communication hub between designers, artists, programmers, and production, ensuring our goals remained aligned and design decisions were clearly understood across disciplines.
Highlights include:
Even when setbacks arose, our team responded with clarity, collaboration, and focus.
Rise From Ruin taught me that great design isn’t just about vision — it’s about adaptability, feedback, and trust in your team. From cutting core mechanics to rethinking our entire layout, each challenge became an opportunity to learn and grow.
I’m incredibly proud of what our team accomplished — and grateful to have led such a talented, driven group of developers. I can’t wait to share the game with the world when it launches on Steam in May 2025.
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