Álvaro Barrientos

Game and UX Designer

About

I'm a Game Designer currently working at aheartfulofgamesIf you want to contact me you can send me an email.

Projects

This are some of the projects in which I have been working on for the past few years

Evil Dead: The Game

I was part of the Evil Dead: The Game development team, as a Junior Technical UX/UI Designer.As part of the UX/UI Team some of my tasks in the development were:– User Research, mainly via focus tests performed alongside with the Design team.
– UI implementation on Unreal Engine 4 using C++
– Wireframing for UI elements and screens proposals on Adobe Xd
– Ellaboration of final textures for UI elements on Adobe Photoshop

Ignited Steel

August 2020 – July 2021I worked as a Game Designer and UX/UI Designer on Ignited Steel, a Turn Based Tactical RPG with Roguelite elements.My main tasks here were:– Mechanics Design and Game Design in general, alongside with some Level Design
– Creation of a balancing system on excel to help me and the team to balance the game
– Game Balancing
– Conceptualizing, creating and iterating the whole UI of a Turn Based Tactical RPG videogame, including the ellaboration of Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi wireframes on Figma and the creation of all UI assets on Illustrator
– Helping the programmers to implement the UI on Unity

Game Developer's Library

December 2020 – March 2021Game Developer’s Library is the final project for the UI Design module of my UX/UI Design masters degree. It is a fictional web magazine focused on articles about Game Development and Game Design, in a similar way to gamasutra but also focused on Board Games and Tabletop RPGs.What I did:– A Moodboard and a Lo-Fi wireframe to lay the foundations of this project
– An atomic Design System, choosing the colors, typography and ellaborating small blocks that would later compose the final design
– A Hi-Fi wireframe with the design system I had previously ellaborated. This included a home page and two example pages (all responsive) and also a Landing Page only designed for desktop
– Implementing the Landing Page using wordpress, HTML and CSSFigma Link

EVERYGamer

October 2020 – December 2020EVERYGamer is the final project for the UX Design module of my UX/UI Design masters degree. It is a non-existing app with the purpose of making it easier for disabled people to find accessible videogames.What I did:– Product Definition using a Scope Canvas, Lean UX Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas. I also made a Benchmarking and a MoSCoW Diagram.
– UX Investigation by making an Empathy Map and a Lean Survey Canvas, which helped me ellaborate both a User Persona and a User Journey
– Interaction Design by ellaborating a Site Map and some Medium Fidelity Wireframes for the MVP of the appWireframe with interactions

Hopebringers

September 2019 – May 2020Hopebringers is a Tactical RPG released in Steam as a university project. We were all Game Designers in the development team, so to complete the game everyone had to do tasks they were not completely familiar with. In my case this were UX and UI Design tasks. Even though we learned some UX Design in university, it was a real challenge and I learned a lot working on the UX and UI Design of Hopebringers.My main tasks here included:– Character and Enemy Design, along with the few balance we were able to do
– Level Design
– Writing
– Conceptualization of the UI to match the style of the game
– Making different versions of Lo-Fi and Hi-FI wireframes of the UI
– Creating the UI assets
– Coding and implementing most of the UI on Unity

Icarus

February 2019 – June 2019Icarus: A Space Revolution, is a Graphic Adventure about a riot in a spaceship made as a university project. This was the first game we made in teams. In my case the development team was of 5 people.In Icarus, appart from game and puzzle design, I mostly worked on the art and graphics. However, the most I learned while developing Icarus was teamworking. Working on a team, with a sort-of scrum system is very different from working on your own and it is something you have to get used to with practice.My main tasks here included:– Designing all the environment and character art and animations
– Puzzle Design and Game Design in generalAs a final disclamer, the texts of the game are only in spanish, in case you want to try it.

Level Design

This are some of my level Design works

Hopebringers Level Design

Hopebringers is the final proyect for my final year at university. It is a Turn-Based Tactical RPG, and here part of my tasks were designing and implementing levels on Unity. My workflow was making a rough 2D level design and then starting to implement it. Some things changed during the implementation and, of course, we iterated them with playtesting feedback. I leave some pictures of the 2D level designs and the implemented level in game. All the levels are stylized to look like 3D dioramas, as the game is board game-ish (the units are miniatures, the levels are dioramas and so on)

Level 11In this level the player has to stand a specific number of turns, as it is an assault from the enemies to the village where they are located. The players are in disadvantage, (since in the game attacking from above another unit gives you extra damage) so they have to use the buildings to fight the enemies.

Level 14In this level the player has to reach specific tiles at the end of the level. I designed this level with the idea that the player had to separate its units through the 3 paths so it would be more difficult for the units to help each other in a difficult situation.

Level 15In this level the player has to defeat all the enemies. The concept of this level is a chaothic battlefield with a lot of enemies coming from everywhere.

Level 22This level is the hallway to the final boss. Here, the player has to reach the giant door at the end before a set number of turns. This level does not have an specific concept, is more like setting the mood for the final boss and controlling the intensity curve of the game.

Blockout from a Design Document

This a university assignment in which we had to make a blockout in UE4, based on a Level Design Document from another classmate.In my case I got a Level Design Document for a Bioshock (2007) level. The setting was an amusement park and as the document I recieved was too big, I did only a small part of it. Here are some of the diagrams I recieve to use as a base for the blockout.

Here are some screenshots of the blockout that I made in UE4, you can download the project from this link if you want to explore it further.

PLAYER GUIDANCE WITH LEVEL DESIGN

In this university assignment we were given a level layout on UE4, and we had to polish it and add different elements and lights to guide the player trough the level. The setting was a post apocaliptic/post natural disaster city, and we had to guide the player to some loot chests appart from guiding it to the end of the level.I leave a link so you can explore it freely if you want and you also have some screenshots.

GAME DESIGN DOCUMENTATION

Here you can find some examples of Game Design Documentation I did in College and various projects

Hopebringers Vertical Slice Document

As a final project on my final university year, we had to form groups of 4 people and make a videogame from start to finish. The asignment for the first semester was to design and develop a vertical slice for the project. We design and reflected our objectives for the vertical slice in this Game Design Document.Of course the GDD evolved and was updated over time as the project did, but this is the final version that we made fo the vertical slice.