Laura DeCarli's Portfolio
Game Design & Game Studies
Hello there and welcome to my portfolio!
I am a game designer interested in videogames both as a creative profession and as a subject of study.
I have completed DBGA's online course in Game Design, and I'm currently working on my Master's thesis in Games (Design Track) at the IT University of Copenhagen.
My videogames
Bulb's Escape (2023)
About Bulb's Escape:
Bulb’s Escape is a 3D platformer where the player plays the role of a mischievous lab-made electric creature named Bulb: they'll steal the gravity boots and use them to reach the surveillance cameras, destroy them and escape the lab.
The project has been developed by a team of students, WATT?!! Playhouse Production, as part of the Making Games course from the MSc in Games of the IT University of Copenhagen.
The current beta version is the one that we have handed in for our exam: the player can play around the lab and enact Bulb's grand escape plan.
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The player ump with Bulb's base jump or with the Gravity Boots' Gears.
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The player can recharge the Gravity Boots by interacting with the Lamps.
- The player can Pickup and Push Interactable Objects.
- The player can destroy the Surveillance Cameras by interacting with them.
What did I do for this project?
As Game Design Lead I lead the team through the ideation phase of the initial concept. We started with a divergent ideation session, followed by a convergent ideation session and a vote to choose one of the concepts brainstormed, which I then turned into a Game Concept Document for the team. I worked with the Producer to divide the design work between the members of the Design Team and I made a list of variables that the Design Team would need to fine tune from the editor.
The initial concept prototyped included also puzzles as mini-games to progress through the level, but the idea was scrapped both because of time constraints (scope) and because that prototype lacked a clear focus. As design lead, I lead a discussion for the re-design of the game and then I created a new concept on which we worked to finish the project. We decided to scrap the puzzles and I decided to use the platforming elements of the game as its main focus, because it allowed us to build a complete game around the features that we had already implemented or were in the process of implementing.
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In addition to my main role I also worked on the project as Gameplay Designer, Puzzle Designer, Level Designer and Audio Designer.
WATT?!! Playhouse Production:
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Producer:
Thim Daniel Hansen
Game Design Lead:
Laura DeCarli
User Experience Lead:
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Technical Lead:
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Game Programmers:
Brainstorming drafts for Bulb's Escape's lab's second area's level design:
My level design process for the second area of the lab has been the following:
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I've experimented with the Jump's and Gravity Boots' settings, testing out different distances between obstacles of various heights and with platforming puzzles with the intractable objects.
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Based on the notes I took of these experiments, I drafted examples of maps, each with a top-down view and a height view that showed how the cameras, intractable and lamps could be placed.
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I then selected one version, implemented it in-engine and made adjustments after each test.
Sprites I made for Goldash:
Sprites I co-created with Sebastiano Clon:
Emotes I added to Cristian Ghiorzi's sprite of the player character:
Goldash (2022)
About Goldash:
Goldash is an endless runner mobile game created by Qizue Team for DBGA's online courses in Game Design and Game Programming.
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The player plays the role of Trasher, a cleaner robot tasked with collecting the trash under the city of Goldash.
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During the run, the player has to jump to navigate the environment and to defeat hostile robots.
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However, jumping too much can cause Trasher to overheat, and eventually and explode if they don't cool down by releasing energy by falling on enemies or with ice cubes.
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They can also pick up consumable power-ups that will help them in their run, which can be upgraded through the in-game shops by spending the gears gained from collecting the trash.
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In addition to collecting the trash, the player can also complete various achievements and gain more gears in addition to character skins to personalize Trasher.
What did I do for this project?
I participated in the project as Game Designer and Project Manager. I worked mostly on:
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game's ideation,
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team's organization,
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project's documentation (pitch, GGD, art guidelines, playtesting doc),
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gameplay design,
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fine-tuning (of all elements of the gameplay during the run and of the game's economy),
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on some of the sprites.
About Goldash's sprites:
In order to have an art style as consistent as possible, Qizue Team decided to base any homemade sprite on the spriteset used for the environments (16x16 Industrial Tileset by 0x72).
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I created a reference Art Guidelines document for the team, created a few sprites, re-colored and slightly adjusted the design of sprites made by the other designers and created the animations for the enemies.
Qizue Team:
Game Programmer:
Game Designers:
Pumpking! (2022)
About Pumpking!:
Pumpking! is little 2-players Halloween-themed game made for the One Minute Game Jam #8. The two players chase each other around a cornfield in rounds of 30s: in the first round they can choose if they want to start out playing the role of the escapee or of the chaser, while in the second the roles will be swapped. The players can also choose between two playable characters: Pumpkin and Scarecrow, each with their signature ability. The Pumpkin can sprint, while the Scarecrow can push away or pull towards themselves the other player.
What did I do for this project?
I participated in the project as Game Designer, and I mostly worked on:
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game's ideation,
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level design,
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fine-tuning of the player characters' abilities
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fine-tuning of the power-ups,
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fine-tuning of the traps.
Pumpking!'s Team:
Game Programmers:
Cristian Ghiorzi, Nicolò Bertoli
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Game Designer:
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3D Artist & Animator:
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Music Composer:
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Sound Designer:
My Digital Prototypes
Working title: Froggy Mayhem (2024)
Creating battlemaps for a turn-based strategy videogame:
I worked on a prototype for a turn-based strategy videogame with other three students as a project for ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track).
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My main focus during this project was to learn how to design and implement battlemaps using hexagonal tiles for the combat system designed by MaÅ‚gorzata Maria Mikosz. I've started by researching and analyzing similar games, like Armello (League of Geeks, 2015), the Fire Emblem series (Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo, 1990–) and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (New World Computing, Loki Software, DotEmu, 1999). Then I drafted various iteration of layout maps, evaluated which one would fit better the direction the combat system design was taking and implemented them with the development tools made by Thomas Ovesen Markussen and Thor Lyster Lind.
What did I do for this project?
I participated in the project as Level Designer, and I worked on:
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battlemaps design and implementation,
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quality assurance,
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developing the playtesting protocol,
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conducting external playtests with qualitative interviews along with Małgorzata Maria Mikosz.
Froggamers Team
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Game Programmers
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Game Designers
Working title: Icy Lake (2023)
Creating a prototype and learning to use PuzzleScript:
I've created this prototype for the course Making Games as part of ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track).
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The objective of the assignment was to learn how to use PuzzleScript by either creating a game from scratch, modifying another game or creating a low-fi version of another game. I decided to try to re-create a classic cracked-ice mechanic present in old puzzle games like the one in Sootopolis Gym (Pokémon Emerald Version, Game Freak, 2004) and studied the script of Notsnake, another PuzzleScript game.
About Icy Lake:
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The player has to collect all the acorns and bring them to the player character’s tree.
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The player character leaves behind a tail of cracked ice, if they step on the cracked ice they fall into the water.
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The prototype presents three levels for the player to complete.
Future developments?
I don't plan on turning this into a full game, but I might get back to it from time to time if I come up with new levels.
Working title: Ball Maze Over the Edge (2022)
Creating a prototype and learning to use Unity:
This is a little prototype I made for DBGA Online Blended’s course in Game Design Level 1.
The objective of the assignment was to start learning how to use Unity Engine by re-creating a base prototype from a tutorial and then improve on it by correcting errors, enhancing it however we wanted, and adding a new mechanic, as long as the player’s shape remained that of a sphere.
About Ball Maze Over the Edge:
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I decided to create a game about pushing objects that bounce around when they hit a wall, and to change the aesthetics of the game.
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The player's objective is to push all the little spheres into the void before the time runs out.
Future developments?
It would be interesting to create a game with more levels, to have levels that develop downwards, to play around with physics a bit more, and to add a leaderboard of the players’ scores.
Working title: Roomba Witch (2022)
Creating another prototype in Unity:
This is another small prototype I made for DBGA Online Blended’s course in Game Design Level 2. The base game was in 3D endless runner, that we could enhance however we wanted, and I choose to experiment with creating a game in 2D and to play around with an idea that was discarded during an ideation session with Qizue Team.
About Roomba Witch:
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The player can control two player-objects: a Witch who can jump and her flying Roomba that can be moved up and down.
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The player's objective is to collect as much mail as possible, and to avoid being pushed off the Roomba by the obstacles.
Future developments?
This prototype isn’t particularly polished, because I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it, but it was fun to make and I wouldn’t mind expanding on it (example: giving abilities to the witch, adding animations, sprites for the obstacles and an actual background, creating a more varied level design, etc.).
My Paper Prototypes
Working title: Tarot Hallow (2024)
Designing Playable Media:
This prototype is a group project made for the course Play Lab as part of ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track). Our task was to create a prototype to learn more about game balance, and we choose to work on a card-game where we had to design and balance abstract game mechanics, rather than balancing values of game objects and mechanics like we already have in other projects.
About Tarot Hallow:
Tarot Hallow is a four-player card-game that uses two decks: the Major Arcana deck and the minor arcana deck. At the start of each round a Major Arcana card is revealed, the players will play face down a minor arcana card from their hand and reveal the card they played after everyone had played theirs. The player who has played the minor arcana card with the highest number gets to add the Major Arcana to their Reading. Each Major Arcana card belongs to one of three categories, Magic, Monster and Shadow, and can only be placed in the corresponding category's slot of their Reading. If a card already occupies a category's slot, the next card of the same category scored will be placed reversed (and the next one upright and so on). While the player(s) who played a court card will use the power of that court card:
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Pages: "Switch a Major Arcna card from one player's Reading (not yours) to another player's Reading (not yours), without changing its position. It has to be in the correct slot."
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Knights: "Give two cards of your choice from your Hand of Fate to another player and take two random ones from their hand."
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Queens: "Change another player's Major Arcana cards' position from upright to reversed, or vice versa."
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Kings: "Change one of your Major Arcana cards' position from reversed to upright, or viceversa."
The game ends when there are no more Major Arcana cards to be scored.
What did I do for this project?
I participated in the project as Game Designer, and I worked on:
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game's ideation,
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balancing of the card's effects,
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balancing of the card's scores,
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playtesting,
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writing the game's rule book and finalizing the rules.
Future developments?
The prototype needs some refinements to be turned into a proper card game. It would be worth to re-design elements of in response to the feedback received by external playtesters: Major Arcana cards, for example, could play a more important role during the game through special effects.
The Tarot Hallow Team:
Game Design, Game Mechanics Balancing and QA
Emma Buetow Peláez
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Game Art
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Flavor Text
Emma Buetow Peláez
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Scores Balancing
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Rulebook Design
Working title: Surrealist Tongues (2024)
Designing Playable Media:
I've created this prototype for the course Playable Media as part of ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track). The objective of the exam was to design a prototype for a piece of playable media, with at least a digital component, as part of a critical reflection on a specific theme or design practice.
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The idea behind Surrealist Tongues is inspired by a variant of games such as Consequences and Cadavre Exquis, and by my reflections on playful communication and the concept of language levels.
About Surrealist Tongues:
Surrealist Tongues is a two players game in which the players' objective is to create a story made out of eight sentences, four for one player and the language that they speak and write but the other doesn’t, and four for the other player. Each sentence should answer the following questions:
1st – How do fairytales start in your language?
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, in any order – Who? What? How? When? Where? Why?
8th – How do fairytales end in your language?
My goals with this prototype were two:
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To explore the idea that not only is possible to play with languages and communication even if the two players have not even started learning each other’s languages yet, but that some types of play are accessible only when the players do not understand the other’s language.
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To make the new languages feel less intimidating to the players.
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​A basic concept of this game can be played by just using the player’s voices and pen and paper. The paper prototype of this game consists of printable cards with the prompts and a space to write in. The digital prototype has been designed as a mobile application meant to be used by two players playing on the same device, similarly to how they would share the prompt-cards in the paper prototype. While the digital prototype at the moment is not fully complete, it is playable as an adaptation of the paper prototype to experience an early version of the game.
Future developments?
The next steps to complete the digital prototype will be:
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Researching how to implement dictation, so that the Input Fields can be filled in by dictating the sentence into the smartphone’s microphone.
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Researching how to implement automatic translation, so that the players can choose if they want to translate their sentences themselves, or if they want to have an automatic translation and eventually correct through edits.
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Researching how to randomize the order of the Middle questions
Working title: Dicey Labyrinth (2022)
Working from a brief:
I made this paper prototype for DBGA Online Blended’s course in Game Design Level 1. The assignment was to pitch a game for a turn-based PvE game based around a set of dice and power-ups, with Slay the Spire and Yahtzee as inspirations.
About Dicey Labyrinth:
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I created a Pitch Document and a first paper prototype of a game in which 1 up to 4 players have to use dice combos to defeat the guards that keep them trapped in a labyrinth that magically changes its layout.
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The pitch could be used for either a digital game or a board game (or both).
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The boardgame version takes inspiration from the boardgame Labyrinth. The way the labyrinth shifts is determined by rolling the dice.
Future developments?
I would love to test and fine-tune this paper prototype and/or create a digital version of the game based on this pitch.
My Digital Exercises
Flyover Camera Cinematic in Unity (2023)
Learning to use Unity's Terrain Tools and Cinemachine:
This is a flyovercamera cinematic I made for DBGA Online Blended’s course in Game Design Level 3. I started learning to use:
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Unity's Terrain Tools to create an outdoor level,
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Cinemachine to create a cinematic with a flyover camera that shows the level and key locations.
Simple Interactions in Unreal (2023)
Learning to create simple interactions in Unreal 4:
These are some little experiments I made to learn how to create simple interactions in Unreal Engine 4 for DBGA's Online Blended course in Game Design Level 3. I decided to:
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make a small indoor scene with diegetic lighting and pictures on the walls (using decals),
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create some simple interactions with the level for the player (opening/closing doors, turning music tracks on/off to mix them, read some pieces of paper, and be damaged by fire),
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and add UI and HUD elements.
My Paper Experiments
Yathzee Mod for Labyrinth (2022)
About this mod:
While working on the Dicey Labyrinth prototype, I also came up with a few rules that I then used it to make Labyrinth a bit more fun for me and my friends.
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At the beginning of their turn, each player can roll the dice to obtain combos like one would do while playing Yathzee. The combo obtained can be used to cast a spell.
How did I create this mod:
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I created a list of spells that players can cast to gain an advantage or to create a disadvantage against the other players in the boardgame Labyrinth.
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Then I assigned the spells to Yathzee combos.
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I tested it with my friends and changed some spells based on their feedback, and now our games of Labyrinth are more competitive.
My Academic Writing
The Player as Co-Narrator:
a Case Study of This War of Mine (2022)
Bachelor's Thesis
in «Communication, Media and Advertising»
While playing This War of Mine (11 bit studios, 2014), I noticed that my playstyle had a significant impact on the narrative development of my playthroughs. This prompted my investigation about the relationship between game design and narrative development. Specifically, I wanted to critically assess my contribution as a player.
These initial questions were eventually followed by others: What is the relationship between the game’s anti-war message and the narratives produced by the player with their own experiences? Does the process of co-creation reinforce This War of Mine’s political and moral position?
These are the main questions that guided my analysis of This War of Mine’s design and of other player's experiences with the game.
