Introduction
AetherCorp: a top-down arcade space shooter built in Unity. You're a lone pilot defending the Human Federation from an alien invasion across three distinct boss fights, each with its own attack patterns to learn and beat.
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
Wrote the main story beats and protagonist/narrator dialogue
Designed dialogue to keep players oriented mid-combat while carrying the story forward
Each line does three things at once: ties the fight to the invasion storyline, states the immediate objective, and reinforces the long-term stakes
Art Design
2D Art / Animations
Designed all 2D assets
Built a strict color language for instant readability: hero in white/blue, enemies in red/black
Kept faction identity clear at a glance, even during fast bullet-hell combat
System Design
Boss Design and Combat
Each boss's appearance matches its gameplay identity: shield cores look shielded, turrets read as turrets
Weak points are visually distinct, so players can act on intuition instead of trial and error
Difficulty curve across the three fights: Boss 1 tests positioning, Boss 2 adds timing and target priority, the final Mothership combines both with added swarm pressure
User Research
UX & Playtesting
Ran repeated playthroughs and structured playtesting to find where players got stuck, misread mechanics, or hit frustration walls
Smoothed difficulty spikes and refined control feel and combat pacing based on observed player behavior
Redesigned moments where less-skilled players were likely to fail repeatedly