Jacobo Luengo's Game Design Portfolio: Metroid: Samus Returns

MercurySteam

Nintendo 3DS

Description:

Brave the hostile terrain of an alien planet teeming with vicious life forms as legendary bounty hunter Samus Aran. Her mission? Terminate the Metroid menace in this masterful reimagining of her 1991 Game Boy™ adventure. Samus Aran's arsenal has been enhanced with new moves and abilities that are sure to help her face the deadly surprises that await. This intense, side-scrolling action platformer is a great entry point into the Metroid franchise and perfect for returning fans as well, and it's available only on the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.

This intense, side-scrolling action platformer has been completely remade with engaging and immersive 3D visuals and a rich, atmospheric color palette.
Classic Metroid II: Return of Samus gameplay is joined by a wealth of new content, including a set of brand new abilities that utilizes a mysterious energy resource called "Aeion," a powerful melee counterattack, and 360-degree Free Aim Mode.
There are plenty of secrets to find—and if you uncover enough of them, you may even start to unravel the mystery of Planet SR388's past.

My role:

Game Designer

Level Designer

As game designer, I was in charge of designing all aspects involving gameplay and game content. From the initial idea to the final result, including implementation and adjustments working together with director, programming and art teams. During the development, my idea was achieving a renewed and updated sense of gameplay while keeping the classic essence of Metroid series intact.

Controls:

I worked on ensuring that controlling Samus feels responsive, precise and fluid. Samus' move set was designed focusing on giving players enough resources to overcome navigation and combat situations through the entire game, making them not only challenging but rewarding too.

Samus' actions include: Run, jump, spin jump, wall jump, roll, roll jump, 360-degree standing aim, aim while running, shoot, grab to a ledge and all subsequent actions, underwater movement, bomb jump chain, grapple swing, grapple yank, temporal invincibility, impact reactions and movement along frozen enemies.

Weapons:

I designed Samus' base and upgradeable arsenal as well as how it interacts with the environment and enemies. I was in charge of its properties, visual proposal, parameter adjustments, damage balancing and cooperated with level designers regarding acquisition progression.

Weapons include: Beam, Charge Beam, Ice Beam, Wave Beam, Wide Beam, Plasma Beam, Missiles, Super Missiles, Bomb, Power Bomb, Spin Attack and Screw Attack.

Abilities:

Samus' abilities are special unlockable powers the player can use to lever situations during exploration or encounters against enemies. My idea while designing them was offering tools with either active or passive benefits that also allows secondary uses when the player thinks out of the box. This includes the combined use of abilities with some weapons or over specific enemies.

Therefore, abilities that can be used for both exploration and combat (e.g. Aeion abilities) needed to be fine-tuned in level design.

Abilities include: Scan Pulse, Lightning Armor, Beam Burst, Phase Drift, Morph Ball, Spider Ball, Spring Ball, Grapple Beam, Power Suit, Varia Suit, Gravity Suit and Space Jump.

Interactions:

I also designed all interactions with the environment that are related to exploration, level progression, secrets, puzzles and combat. Interactable devices can be clearly visible or hidden behind a black veil or a mask and their visuals were designed to give enough information to the player about the way they need to be used.

However, depending on their nature, the way the player uses or discovers them were designed to be either deliberately obvious or to encourage ingenuity.

Interactive devices include: Destructible blocks, grapple blocks, doors, weapon doors, elevators, recharge stations, save stations, teleporters, purple haze zones, brambles, water, lava and heat rooms.

Enemies:

I was responsible for designing all enemies of the game. They are inspired by enemies from the original Metroid II Return of Samus game but, in most cases, they were completely redesigned with new visuals, attacks, AI behaviors and strengths/weaknesses.

I also balanced their parameters in order to keep game progression and ensure challenging encounters.

Visuals help players to identify enemy type (organic or robot) and their vulnerable spots (in case they have armored parts) fast during the combat. They also depict enemy version (regular or stronger, which deals more damage, has more health and usually different attacks).

Attacks were designed to encourage the use of the newly introduced Melee Counter mechanic and defensive Aeion abilities as well as run, jump and roll to dodge them. They also have in mind the simultaneous execution of attacks when several enemies are put together in a level. Therefore, enemies can execute melee attacks, unstoppable melee attacks, ranged attacks and ranged attacks consisting on projectiles that can be destroyed with either Melee Counter or weapons.

Behaviors were designed to present different combat approaches in which the player has to evaluate the environment and think about the best way to solve the encounter. They make a smart use of level design in such a way that the player is surprised of finding enemies flying, crawling or running and having more aggressive or defensive behavior depending on their nature and the part of the level they are placed.

Strengths/weaknesses puts players in situations in which they can decide the way they are going to defeat enemies by using different weapons even though some of them are more effective than others. However, some enemies can only receive damage from specific weapons (Ice Beam, Missiles, Grapple Beam...).

Enemies include: More than 35 regular enemies including stronger versions, visuals, attacks, AI behaviors, strengths/weaknesses and balancing.

Bosses:

I was in charge of designing the majority of bosses from scratch, being the enemies with the most complex AI behaviors and attacks of the game. Due to their dependencies with the surroundings, I also designed the arenas they fight in to ensure a variety of situations that also grant the best combat experience.

Like regular enemies, I balanced all parameters of bosses as well as their attack patterns, attack frequency and decision conditions: standing on the ground or flying, getting away from Samus or attacking her, which attack to execute, staying in the arena or escaping to a different one...

Additionally, I also designed the acting they execute the first time they enter an arena.

Bosses include: New-born Metroid, Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, Omega, Queen and Proteus Ridley. Metroids also include evolved versions: Evolved Alpha, Gamma, Zeta and Omega. I also balanced Arachnus and Diggernaut combats.

Levels:

I designed two areas of the game from scratch, working together with level design team during several initial iterations. In addition, I designed all boss arenas and also created puzzle-like situations that were added to different levels. The situations combine the use of Samus' weapons, Grapple Beam, navigation abilities, Aeion abilities, interactive props, environmental hazards and, in some cases, enemies.

Levels include: Two areas, boss arenas and puzzle-like situations.

UI:

I was in charge of designing game menus, including both main menu and also in-game ones. I also designed the HUD that is available on the lower screen of 3DS during the whole game with touch properties. The HUD displays a mini-map that can be expanded to a full interactive version through Samus' menus. These menus also allow players to check all acquired abilities and expansions, as well as their respective tutorials.