At Niantic I was the game designer from conception to launch on *Routes*, a tentpole feature of *Pokémon GO*. Routes are player-created pathways - while playing, they can choose to start creating a Route, walk it in the real world, then submit it. Once a Route is approved, any player can see nearby Routes made by other players, and then walk on them to discover interesting paths and new spots, all while earning in-game bonuses and rewards. Over a million+ Routes have been made by the playerbase, which is pretty staggering!
Over 11 months, I designed the system and design with a focus on how to introduce UGC for the first time to the game in a way that balanced player freedom and safety (working hand in hand with our Trust and Safety department), while still integrating smoothly with the core game loop and experience. Because of the relatively tight turnaround for a large feature like this, the design was created from the outset with a modular approach, with additional features and sub-features planned to have flexibility to be launched day 1 or at later dates as part of scheduled live operations or seasonal content - as a result Routes had a very robust roadmap for post-launch.
Development was by necessity highly collaborative, since internal teams needed to be consulted for viability (server performance and optimization, live operations coordination, user research and feedback, player safety) and external partners needed to be constantly in the loop (for brand, license, and game direction consistency with the franchise).
Production phase responsibilities included iteration on game design, communication and feedback with other departments, implementation of and maintenance of data (all the design-driven tuning, basically), and consistent outreach for alignment with external partners.
#### Other specific tasks in my time there included:
- Designing player quest content for Routes, as well as the new Pokémon Zygarde, which has a tight association with the feature.
- I was also the game designer on the Masterball item, which included designing its integration with the rest of the game for consistency, and designing its initial acquisition quest.
- Taking over responsibility of tracking and managing game design department tools requests and feedback to increase velocity on tools improvements. The designer data pipeline at Niantic is very specialized, and I was committed to making sure that game design was able to get a steady cadence of improvements to it as well as a roadmap.
- Creating Google Workspace Add-Ons to improve game designer workflow, specifically to aid in speeding up the process of submitting designer data.
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