Necrodemic

Game Design
My Role

UX Design, Gameplay, Story Building

Collaborators

Bullieverse Gaming,
Beyond Labs

Timeline

Aug '21 - Present

The Brief

This is an overview of the work I did with the Game Development team at Bullieverse. The projects had me handle a lot of the world building, user experiences and a few parts of the gameplay. The development undergoes a constant feedback loop with a few dedicated community members, which are then quickly updated.


The Concept

The company has released two PC games till now, Bear Hunt and Necrodemic. Both the games are third person shooters, where the bull has to eliminate zombie bears.

Background

The journey of Bullieverse started out with NFTs of bulls. The first step in creating an universe around them was with the game Bear Hunt, where we hunt bears as the name suggests. After a great response to the game, the team wanted to create a system where we could host competitions and create retention within the users.

Creating the Lore

The game had to revolve around our main characters, Bulls, opposing zombie bears and other threats. But it also had to incorporate some Bears as well. So we introduced a third character, a necromancer, who was using the dead bodies of bears and other animals.

Bear Hunt

Bear Hunt was a linear checkpoint based game, divided into 4 islands of increasing difficulty. I got to lead the initial development of the game, creating the basic mechanics and the gameplay. The game was divided into islands to gradually introduce the user to new mechanics and difficult enemies. The game’s crescendo came with a boss fight with a big lava bear. 



Since this was our first venture into games, the product was quite one dimensional and lacked replay value. The environment, albeit beautiful, did not encourage the user to explore different parts. Necrodemic, a continuation of this game, tried to tackle these issues.

Necrodemic

This was a survival based game, where the bears would come in waves. We could host different tournaments and rank players, motivating them to keep getting better and improve the game’s retention rate. My responsibilities included working on the user experience and contribute to a few aspects of the gameplay. The horror genre created an interesting opportunity to explore different art styles.

Inspiration

I looked at various games and picked out attributes that would fit well with our system. Elden Ring was one of the biggest inspiration, with incredible world building and a complex UX system to navigate through it. Other zombie games like The Last of Us and Walking Dead Franchise helped me ground the aesthetics.

Scalability

I looked at various games and picked out attributes that would fit well with our system. Elden Ring was one of the biggest inspiration, with incredible world building and a complex UX system to navigate through it. Other zombie games like The Last of Us and Walking Dead Franchise helped me ground the aesthetics.

Designing the Interface

I looked at various games and picked out attributes that would fit well with our system. Elden Ring was one of the biggest inspiration, with incredible world building and a complex UX system to navigate through it. Other zombie games like The Last of Us and Walking Dead Franchise helped me ground the aesthetics.

Key Takeaways

I looked at various games and picked out attributes that would fit well with our system. Elden Ring was one of the biggest inspiration, with incredible world building and a complex UX system to navigate through it. Other zombie games like The Last of Us and Walking Dead Franchise helped me ground the aesthetics.