Guardian Angel for Hire

Platform: PC
Engine: Unity 3D
Duration: 8 months
Team Size: 11 (Remote)
Build: Itch.io

Guardian Angel for Hire was developed as my capstone project in my final year at Brock University. The game was developed entirely remotely by a team consisting of a producer, a designer, five programmers, and four artists.
As the Lead Designer for this project, it was my responsibility, along with the rest of the design team to develop the mechanics, levels, and overall gameplay. I personally designed all 13 levels as well as many of the hazards included within them. I developed the NPCs and their abilities alongside the programming team and worked with them to iterate on our initial concepts.
My additional responsibilities included developing and writing the project's narrative, creating the game's music, and assisting the art team where necessary.

Project Overview

Guardian Angel for Hire is a timed 3D puzzle game that follows brand-new guardian angel Tamiel on their first day of work. To learn the ropes of the new job, Tamiel is tasked with protecting Reginald, an accident-prone old man, from a series of strange deaths.
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Take control of NPCs, use their abilities to disable hazards, and protect your client until he reaches his final destination.

Design Development

One of the biggest aspects of the design philosophy for Guardian Angel was the concept of learning through failure. One of our main challenges during production was trying to balance the difficulty of the game to ensure players felt like they were achieving mastery rather than being punished.

Some of the different tactics we used to achieve this feel were:
- Quick level resets after failure
- Hints appearing after multiple failures
- Removing penalties for failure
- In-universe tutorials

A screenshot from Guardian Angel for Hire. Vahuel the angel saying "It will be a good learning experience."

Level Development

Guardian Angel for Hire consists of 13 levels spread out between 3 environments, the grocery store, the construction site, and the city.
Each level was developed by first deciding on a level concept. For the tutorial levels the concepts focused on what skill we wanted to teach the player, for regular levels the focus was centered around a specific hazard or movement challenge.

After the concept was decided upon, levels were initially developed on paper, going through multiple iterations. They were then greyboxed and tested, testing and adjustments continued as the level progressed and assets were added, until the level reached a satisfactory state.

A flowchart of the level design process. Starting with level concept, moving to paper prototype, greybox, testing, asset implentation, and finally final level

Level Development - Tutorials

Developing the tutorial levels was one of my largest focuses during the project. Although the game revolves around failure as a learning tool, I believed it was important to set players up for success as much as possible and keep gameplay intuitive.
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My first step was to create a list of all the mechanics the player would need to learn to complete the game. I then divided them up based on where they first appeared in the game, and designated at least one level per area to teach the player the essential mechanics.
The first level in the game is simple, it introduces the player to the game's movement system, the first NPC, and the the first hazard. To keep the introduction to gameplay from being overwhelming, I wanted to introduce as few mechanics as possible.
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The player starts off close to the hazard, which is marked by the UI as well as pointed out in the dialogue of the game. Reginald moves slowly and starts quite far from the hazard, giving the player ample time to reach it and understand how exactly to deactivate it.

The design of this level stayed consistent throughout production and testing, the main additions being UI and narrative rather than level design changes.