Level & Design Philosophy
The core philosophy of Slip-Up N Slide was to embrace controlled chaos. The game was intentionally designed to allow players to experiment, take risks, and “break” the level through skillful use of momentum, physics, and terrain rather than following a single intended path.
An early challenge was finding the balance between unpredictability and readability. During testing, some players felt the physics were exciting but difficult to understand at high speeds. To address this, I adjusted slope angles, widened key track segments, and softened turns to preserve momentum while keeping player intent readable. This ensured the chaos felt playful and expressive rather than frustrating.
Level Design
The tracks were built using a blockout-first workflow, with an early focus on flow, speed, and maintaining momentum. From the first iterations, I shaped wide downhill slopes, angled edges, bounce-friendly walls, and overlapping vertical sections to encourage continuous movement and reduce unnecessary speed loss. The goal was to make the track feel fast and playful, where movement itself becomes part of the challenge rather than constant stopping and resetting.
Level layouts were intentionally layered to give players meaningful choices. Instead of simply offering shorter or longer routes, each path varied in how demanding it was to execute. Some routes favored clean racing lines and consistency, while others rewarded riskier movement, tighter turns, and more confident use of the physics system. This allowed players to develop their own preferred routes and encouraged replayability through mastery rather than memorization.
Shortcuts were treated as opportunities rather than exploits. During playtesting, a few routes allowed players to skip too much of the track with very little effort, which reduced both tension and decision-making. Rather than removing these shortcuts, I refined them by reshaping terrain edges, adjusting wall angles, and repositioning hazards so that taking a shortcut required commitment and skill. This helped preserve player freedom while reinforcing a clear risk-versus-reward structure.
Pacing was something I constantly paid attention to throughout development. Track length, slope angles, and obstacle density were tuned to support a 60–90 second run, giving players enough time to recover from mistakes without breaking the overall flow. Calmer sections were placed between more demanding sequences to prevent fatigue and help players read the track ahead while maintaining momentum.
Throughout iteration, playtesting was a key driver of design decisions. I observed how players actually moved through the track, where they tended to lose speed, and which routes they naturally gravitated toward. Layout changes were made based on these observations rather than on intended paths alone, helping refine readability, fairness, and overall flow across different skill levels.
Game Design
I worked extensively on the game’s core gameplay systems, with a particular focus on movement, physics behavior, restart logic, checkpoints, and the rules governing multiplayer races. A large part of this work involved tuning the sliding mechanic to feel responsive and expressive while still being grounded in physical constraints such as friction, slope angle, and limited air control. The intention was to make movement feel playful and unpredictable, but never random.
During development, playtesting revealed that players often felt frustrated after crashing or entering ragdoll states, especially in time trial scenarios where maintaining flow is critical. Losing control for too long broke the rhythm of the run and discouraged experimentation. To address this, I helped refine recovery timing, respawn behavior, and restart logic so players could regain control quickly and re-engage with the track.
These adjustments were important in supporting the game’s core loop of experimentation and mastery. Fast recovery encouraged players to take risks, retry difficult sections, and push for better times without feeling overly punished for mistakes. This helped reinforce the speedrunning mindset at the heart of the game while keeping the experience approachable for less experienced players.
Technical & UX Design
Alongside level and game design, I worked with UI and UX, contributing to HUD layout, menu flow, restart behavior, and feedback systems such as timers and victory screens. A key focus was minimizing downtime and keeping player intent clear during high-speed gameplay.
In parallel, I also worked in Blender to refine track geometry, aligning vertices and smoothing transitions between segments so the road surface felt continuous and readable at high speeds. This helped eliminate sudden bumps or breaks in the track that could unintentionally disrupt momentum or player control.
A notable issue occurred with restart and checkpoint behavior, where players could unintentionally trigger resets while attempting risky shortcuts. I adjusted trigger placement and camera behavior to ensure resets only occurred when players were clearly out of bounds. This improved fairness, reduced frustration, and reinforced confidence when attempting risky plays.
