Bubblegum Beatdown
Level Designer/Atmosphere designer | Team of 9 | Fall 2023
Bubblegum Beatdown is a glittery magical, hack & slash game where you play as a magical girl fighting demons in a mall. Liberate the different parts of the mall, unlock new magical girl powers, and use them to save the mall and the world!
This project came about in the first semester of the Capstone game program at Champlain college. Bubblegum Beatdown was worked on over the course of the fall semester, with each week acting as an individual "sprint", where we set goals and delegate to maximize workflow.
As a designer on this team, my responsibilities mainly included the creation of the Concourse level, which acts as the hub of the game and tutorial/onboarding zone for the player. My job was to create a believable center to a mall that players could learn their abilities in and practice, then make use of the room to venture off into each level as the player sees fit.
Game Summary
Bubblegum Beatdown is a glittery magical and violent horde fighter that caters to women and the LGBTQIA+ community. Become a yo-yo wielding magical girl to fight hordes of demons and save the world. Defeat enemies to unlock new and stylish clothing that will not only boost your radical early 2000’s look, but also your abilities! Who needs to spray and pray when you can slay and pray!
While producing this game, we wanted to be sure we were appealing to our demographic while also maintaining a respectful representation of what we show. We made sure not to oversexualize any characters in our game as that would turn our audience away.
Additionally, while the mechanics are definitely something that would appeal to a male gamer, we accepted that the theming of our game may alienate the majority of other demographics outside our target.
Technical
Bubblegum Beatdown was developed in Unreal, making use of SVN version control to manage the project. Lastly, we made use of the Atlassian suite products (Mainly Jira and Confluence) to handle and keep track of production and tasks.
My Role
As a designer on this team, my responsibilities mainly included the creation of the Concourse level, which acts as the hub of the game and tutorial/onboarding zone for the player. My job was to create a believable center to a mall that players could learn their abilities in and practice, then make use of the room to venture off into each level as the player sees fit.
The concourse manifested to me as a large rectangular room with alcoves that break off of it, and 3 total stories for the player to explore. The player would spawn at the entrance, where they would be onboarded with a small information board explaining how to play. Additionally, while players could customize their avatar at the start of the game, I also created changing rooms where the player can enter and re-customise both their look and abilities if they desire. Past that, I strategically placed things in the concourse like signs and grapple points to allow the player to practice movement, wall jumping, and grappling. The idea was that the player could practice in the concourse, and then each store in the concourse would be a different level that the player co0uld enter and clear at their leisure. In the center of the concourse is a giant statue of the previous Magical-Girl hero, which the player honors through the game, although the demon magic would cause it to come to life and fight the player in the end.