Company

GameFam

​

Link

Company Website | Roblox Page

 

Role

Game, Content, Systems, and Narrative Design

​

Team Size

150+ employees, ~6-10 person dev. team

​

Duration

January 2023 - January 2024

​

Contributions

- Owned entire design of a game with tens of thousands of daily players
- Utilized live-ops knowledge to raise session length and retention
- Wrote unique narratives for Sonic characters with very little edits from SEGA executives
- Consistently designed solutions focused on KPIs, and collaborated with teammates to consider scope

 

Description

Sonic Speed Simulator is a collect-a-thon Roblox game under the simulator genre. Launching in April 2022 as a collaboration between GameFam and SEGA, it became one of the biggest launches on Roblox and is a mainstay as Roblox's #1 branded game.

​

The director of design at GameFam, Chris Fidalgo, brought me in at the end of 2022 to interview for a company need as GameFam started hiring dedicated designers. I was brought with high expectations into the Sonic Speed Simulator team to handle the game's systems, content, and narrative going forward. The game previously had no dedicated design team or designer and with it's "Reborn" update upcoming where it would relaunch the game with new systems, I came in to ensure the relaunch would stick and revitalize the game.

​

Working on Sonic Speed Simulator has been an incredibly unique experience, and I am extremely happy with how I managed the entire design of a game with at least 200k to 800k daily-active users. I was the sole designer making weekly content to keep players coming back, managing all systems needs for the health of progression and economy, and built narratives that were both appealing to players and to SEGA's guidelines. I had a large hand in accomplishing an increase in session length and retention by +50% with lesser resources available to me through my time, bringing back what made the game fun at launch and accomplishing the goals of the relaunch update.

​

If there is a new system or new content update added in Sonic Speed Simulator, I was involved. Adding new limited events each week and constantly improving the fun of them has been a great challenge, but one I've succeeded with extremely well. On top of this, having ownership over any new systems coming in came with it's own pressures. All designs I created that were implemented were made for the enjoyment of players, monetization, and scope. I was always involved with stakeholder discussions and I helped ensure that not just my input, but the input of the team as a whole, was heard. This helped me become a great leader within my team and showed my communication skills at all levels and roles.

​

Building narratives through those events and the story quests in the game has been challenging as well, given the pressures of working with Sonic characters, but my feedback has been that any dialogue that comes from me needs little to no edits. This, with an approval process coming directly from SEGA's legendary producer and developer Takashi Iizuka, marked some of my greatest satisfaction as narrative is why I got into games originally.

​

Throughout my time on this project, I kept ownership over Sonic Speed Simulator as the game designer with a wonderful team of passionate group of people who have backgrounds as Roblox developers, Sonic developers, and beyond. Working with the Sonic franchise as my first full-time job was both a dream that pushed my skills to the limit. Each time, I satisfied the goals of all stakeholders involved and them some, surpassing the high expectations given to me at my level of experience. I am confident for whatever comes next I will easily be able to manage pressures, as this opportunity has helped me show off how incredibly well I can deal with stacking pressures.

​

From boss battles, races, quests, adventures, new worlds, new systems and more, I had a great impact on improving Sonic Speed Simulator for a long-term life. While it hurts to leave this project after being laid off, I am proud of the work I accomplished and am excited for what is next!