Introduction
AetherCorp is my freshman project. It's a top-down space shooter made in Unity. You play as a human pilot fighting back against an alien colonization to save the Human Federation before it collapses. The game is structured around three major boss encounters—each alien mothership has its own signature mechanics and attack patterns, so every fight asks the player to learn and adapt. It’s a fast, arcade-style experience focused on tight movement, clear combat feedback, and the escalating pressure of a last-stand war in space.
My Roles:
I worked on Narrative Design, Art Design, and UX Design for AetherCorp.
Narrative Design: I wrote the game’s storyline and character dialogue to frame the player as a human hero fighting against the alien invasion.
Art Design: I created all of the game’s 2D assets and designed the mechanics of each boss.
UX Design: I tuned the game experience by adjusting level flow and player controls, making sure the difficulty curve felt fair and steadily challenging instead of spiking unpredictably.
Narrative Design
(Story, Dialogue, and Player Guidance)
For narrative, I wrote the game’s main story beats and a mix of protagonist + narrator dialogue. My goal wasn’t just “telling lore,” but using dialogue to keep the player oriented while they’re in combat.
I designed lines that do three things at once:
Explain what’s happening in the broader invasion storyline
Give the player a clear short-term objective (“What am I doing in this fight right now?”)
Reinforce the long-term goal (“Why am I taking down these motherships, and what happens if I fail?”)
That way, even when the game gets chaotic, the player still feels guided and always has a reason to push forward instead of drifting between fights.
Art Design
(2D Art/ Animations)
This project was primarily art-driven. I designed all 2D assets around a deliberate color language to ensure instant readability — the hero uses clean white and blue to convey purity and freedom, while enemies are built around red and black to signal aggression and threat. Even during fast-paced bullet hell sequences, players always know who's who at a glance.
System Design
(Boss Design and Combats)
Each boss was designed with visuals and mechanics in mind simultaneously. A boss's appearance directly reflects its gameplay identity: shield cores look shielded, turret bosses read as turret bosses immediately. Weak points are visually distinct and consistent with the overall design language, so players can act on intuition rather than trial and error.
The three bosses follow a clear difficulty curve — Boss 1 focuses on positioning, Boss 2 introduces timing and target priority, and the final Mothership combines both while layering in swarm pressure. Each fight teaches something new; the finale makes sure you've learned it all.
User Research
(UX & Playtesting)
I drove UX improvement through repeated playthroughs, structured user research, and hands-on playtesting. My focus was identifying where players got stuck, misread mechanics, or hit frustration walls — then iterating to reduce that friction.
Key changes included smoothing difficulty spikes for steadier progression, refining control feel and combat pacing based on observed player behavior, and redesigning moments where less-skilled players were likely to fail repeatedly. The goal throughout was consistent: keep the game exciting and challenging, without punishing players simply for being new to the genre.