XenoFarm - Group Project
XenoFarm let's players grow plants and look after monsters on an lien planet research facility. By collecting resources, players can upgrade their base by unlocking new plants to grow and monsters to farm materials from. The ultimate goal is to completely rebuild the facility.
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I acted as the lead designer on this project, and made the general loop of the game as well as many design decisions and justifications behind it. I also did the Level Design for the game, creating the general layout for the level as well as decorating the level and enclosures with props while working closely with the art team.
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I also did testing of the game, reporting any bugs found and how to replicate them, as well as balancing the game by making changes to the numbers to improve the player experience.
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XenoFarm went on to win the GameRepublic 2025 award for Best Team.
Gameplay Video
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Level Design Process
I made a simple version of the first level iteration top down using Aseprite and used the modelling mode in Unreal Engine to create a simple blockout to get an understanding of scale and player experience. I took any notes and feedback and made a second iteration. Once any issues with that version were addresses, the final version of the level layout was done and building the level started.
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Gameplay Design Process
XenoFarm was made as a group project as part of my masters course at University of Staffordshire. As this was my first time working with and getting the know my group, communicating with and getting to know my team and their strengths was very important in shaping the initial game idea. I found that some of the artists of my team leaned more into character art, and enjoyed making creatures especially, while others enjoyed to work on interior environments. This is what spawned the idea of an alien monster collection game as it gave opportunity for our artists to play to their strengths.
During preproduction, Miro was used to share ideas between the team and to keep track of early plans and design decisions.
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The initial idea for XenoFarm was to create a fast paced interactive 3D clicker game where there's always something for the player to do, and always opportunities to upgrade what's available to them in the game. This way the player always has a next goal to work towards which will keep their attention while playing, and always feels like they progressing and getting more powerful or successful.
While the final product of the game was similar to the starting idea, many changes and iterations were made through the design process. An example of this was that there was originally a shop the player could sell materials for in exchange for new plants and upgrades, this was then changed to an upgrade system that was directly tied to monster material drops the player could get. A crafting system would let players use their collected items from looking after their monsters to create something new for upgrades, keeping everything more focussed on the monsters and their ecosystem rather than different currencies.