Charles Gruss Game Design

FADING ECHO

GAME INFO

Studio: Emeteria | Publisher : New Tales

Genre: Action adventure | Platform: Consoles & PC

Engine: Unreal Engine 5

Role: Lead Game Designer

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

I’ve worked for 3 years as a Lead Game Designer on Fading Echo, a third-person action-adventure game for consoles and PC. 

I joined the studio at the very beginning of the concept phase and stayed with the team until the end of the alpha.

High level design

  • Defined the game vision alongside the creative direction team
  • Defined high-level design intentions for key features
  • Designed core systems and provided implementation guidelines to the design team

Team & project management

  • Mentored designers to support their growth
  • Provided feedback and validated designs to ensure alignment with the vision and budget constraints
  • Established the feature development workflow with the tech and art teams to ensure smooth feature delivery

Combat & 3Cs

  • Combat – Defined combat pillars and philosophy in collaboration with the creative direction
  • Combat – Designed the combat system, including a snapping system allowing the character to pick a target based on the context
  • Combat – Designed character abilities and oversaw enemy design
  • 3Cs – Designed a system managing the action performed by the character depending on player’s input and context to make sure the game is as responsive as possible
  • 3Cs – Improved the camera movement and collisions in collaboration with the tech director
  • 3Cs – Collaborated with the art team to ensure animation are tight and VFX legible
  • 3Cs – Tweaked character movement parameters to ensure a smooth and responsive gameplay
  • 3Cs / Combat – Prototyped game mechanics using Unreal Engine Blueprints and proprietary tools

Progression System

  • Designed player’s level up system and built the Excel file for balancing the XP dropped by enemies and the XP required to level up
  • Designed the character perks system allowing the player to create character builds
  • Designed the UX of the perks system (wireframes + UI animations)