CONTENT DESIGN

Solar Echoes: TTRPG Planetary Adventure Content Design

For new adventures on an alien planet in Krissethi territory, I created content designed to enrich both player experience and GM (MC) storytelling. This includes unique local weapons with stats, images, and cultural flavor text; a new faction, the Sa'mesh Hunter’s Guild, complete with an emblem, guild history, societal role, and player membership options that grant reputation bonuses and discounts.

I also crafted planet-specific gameplay systems, such as a fame system affecting interactions with local NPCs. Additionally, I designed unusual foods with possible debilitating side-effects and a set of “Mission Seeds” detailing exciting story prompts for GMs. Together, these elements provide the GM with the tools to expand narratives with rich, interactive experiences for adventurous players.

Solar Echoes: TTRPG Mission Outcome and Reward Structure

For all missions in the Solar Echoes tabletop RPG, I designed an end-of-mission evaluation and experience point reward system that reinforces cooperative play and goal-oriented teamwork. This structure provides players with clear feedback on performance outcomes while encouraging reflection.

Design Focus:

• Reinforces desired player behaviors through transparent rewards and penalties

• Provides structured GM (MC) guidance for post-mission debriefs

• Encourages future strategic collaboration and team unity

• Balances narrative and mechanical closure for each mission

Unity ARPG: Enemy Starship Data and Design

To support the creation and balancing of human starships, I developed a detailed design spreadsheet outlining each ship’s stats, including armor, shields, speed, maneuverability, weapon loadouts, and more. Behind this data, I built a formula to automatically calculate each ship’s experience point (XP) value based on factors such as durability, mobility, and DPS, helping me maintain consistent difficulty scaling across encounters.

This system also informed creative decisions regarding which weapons, armor, shields, and engines each enemy ship should use to create distinct gameplay roles and challenges. Certain ships naturally took on their own lore; for example, the small, lightly armored “Needlefly” fighters aligned with the role of short-range strike craft deployed from larger carrier ships. This distinguished their tactical purpose and reflected their particular array of stats and equipment.

Unity ARPG: Human Starships Modular Art System

I created five base concept sketches for human starships and collaborated with my artist to transform them into a modular ship design system. Each ship was broken down into interchangeable component, including wings, cockpits, engines, bodies, and weapons. This allowed me to assemble not only the original five ships but also a wide range of new variants.

I’ve expanded the system further by introducing adjustments to scaling, color palettes, and component variations. In this image, the five circled base designs are surrounded by the many modular combinations I’ve produced so far, demonstrating how this system enables rapid iteration, visual consistency, and scalable content creation. The modular system proved to be both flexible and efficient, allowing the artist to focus on expanding the game’s visual content through other commissioned assets instead of devoting time and resources to individual ship designs.

Unity ARPG: Human NPC Pirates Modular Art System

This is an example of male pirate NPCs I created using the modular portrait system. To expand the system’s variety, I created additional customization layers in Photoshop, including new hair and skin color variations, clothing recolors, and extra assets such as hairstyles, tattoos, and facial piercings. I also designed a modified “pirate” outfit variant featuring distinct gang emblems and color schemes to visually differentiate pirate factions, especially those backed by corporate sponsors.

Each pirate’s callsign appears during dialogue, adding personality and humor inspired by real-world pilot culture; for example, one with a muffin-shaped haircut is nicknamed “Muffin,” while another with a gloomy demeanor is ironically called “Sunny.” This system allows for expressive, lore-rich character variety without requiring individual portrait commissions.

Unity ARPG: Armor Company Differentiation and Modular Art System

To support gear variety and progression in the game, I developed a modular art and content system for starship armor design. The system allows for rapid creation of new armor sets by combining interchangeable components to visually represent defined attributes such as weight class (light or heavy), structural complexity, specific weapon resistance, and durability.

I organized this content around the in-universe corporations I previously established, assigning each company a visual identity, tagline, and specialization that aligns with their design philosophy. For example, one manufacturer--Fortress--focuses on ballistic-resistant armor, with durable and complex characteristics. The resulting system not only streamlines armor production and balancing, but also connects gameplay statistics to clear visual and thematic cues, helping players recognize and differentiate armor types at a glance.

Unity ARPG: Modular Art System for NPC Portraits

To support my NPC creation pipeline, I commissioned an artist to develop a modular portrait system that allows me to design a wide variety of characters efficiently. The first system focused on human male NPCs and includes 3 head shapes, 12 hairstyles, 3 eyebrow types, 2 eye types with 3 expressions each, 5 nose shapes, 8 mouth expressions, and 3 clothing variations—covering civilian, security officer, and space pirate archetypes.

I later expanded this approach to include a corresponding female NPC system, enabling even greater variety and representation within the game’s cast. Currently, I’m collaborating with my artist on additional modular systems dedicated to each of the game’s six alien species, further extending the flexibility and scalability of the project’s character design pipeline. This modular approach allows me to create hundreds of unique NPC portraits while maintaining a cohesive visual style and minimizing additional art production costs.

Unity ARPG: Modular Art System for Starship Weapons (Explosive Launchers)

I directed the creation of a modular weapon art system for the Solar Echoes ARPG, covering multiple weapon categories including particle cannons, ballistic cannons, explosive launchers, beam cannons, missile launchers, and plasma launchers. Working closely with my artist, I designed a component-based system that allowed for rapid generation of unique weapon models while maintaining visual consistency. Each manufacturer’s weapons feature distinct color schemes and logos for identity and lore depth, with higher-tier models showing increased visual complexity to reflect stat progression. This system expanded weapon variety, improved player recognition of power tiers, and reduced costs by allowing modular in-house creation instead of requiring multiple art commissions.