About
This project has been in development since 2024.
As game director I own all of our game design in addition to our art direction. I am also contributing various art assets.
The software I currently use includes Unity, Miro, Maya, Visual Studio (C#), Trello, and GitHub Desktop.
Process
The majority of the screenshots featured are of the design document I created for the project in Miro, pictured below.
Zoomed out view of the entire Miro board.
I specifically chose Miro instead of a more traditional page-based design document primarily because of accessibility. The nature of this project involves close collaboration with each VTuber and due to the range of timezones represented, they also needed to be able to give feedback on my designs without me present.
I’ll cover each section in chronological order, starting with the initial pitch.
The initial concepts for an Heirs game: a 2D fighter, a match 3, an idle pet sim, and a WarioWare inspired title.
Heirs was initially considering a 2D fighting game, despite a limited budget. Thankfully I was able to explain to leadership that a 2D fighter would’ve been too big a gamble for even a dedicated game studio, let alone a dedicated VTubing agency.
I came back with the 3 concepts shown above and after discussing the pros and cons of each one, the WarioWare concept resonated most. Humor is a core component of the WarioWare franchise, and the VTubers at Heirs typically have comedic stream commentary. It's why I personally pushed for it, since I believe it would also resonate the strongest with their audience.
Mapping out WarioWare, Inc.’s gameplay states.
My concept art for state progression and early visuals.
My first bits of design are usually gameplay mockups. Since our game is drawing directly from an established franchise, this instead meant studying existing gameplay, specifically its first entry, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!.
I started with WarioWare, Inc. because of WarioWare’s status as a longer-running franchise. When stepping into an existing design space, I believe it’s important to learn the same lessons as your ancestors, or else you run the risk of repeating their same mistakes. For this project it meant researching each entry, seeing what stuck, what was refined, and what was removed.
This directly informed my own explorations, and not just into gameplay states, but into arguably the most important part of any WarioWare clone: the minigames
I first vet minigame concepts with each VTuber here.
A finalized minigame "mini doc."
Each minigame "mini doc" follows the same sectioned format to ease accessibility. While each portion is separated, they all share the same color code established by the center gameplay explanation, making assets easy to track between sections. Each panel of concept art in the center typically depicts a change in the game state, usually in chronological order from left to right. Exceptions include highlighting niche interactions and/or specific art assets, as is the case with the various cups featured in the “Pour!” mini doc, shown below.
“Pour!” has players quickly pour the right amount of liquid into each differently shaped cocktail glass.
“Pour!” is one of the game concepts for Neko Mikki, Heirs’s resident catgirl bartender. Mikki’s propensity for serving alcohol is a core part of her persona’s identity, so a good chunk of my concepting was spent figuring out how to turn each aspect of bartending into its own distinct minigame.
I succeeded with “Pour!” by gamifying the most basic part of bartending, pouring drinks. The player has to do the same, filling each cup up to the dotted line by carefully tilting the cocktail shaker, pour too much and the drink is ruined, too little and you risk having to repeat the process, costing precious seconds. Add in the dotted line quickly fading on higher difficulties and opaque cups that force you to rely purely on audio queues and “Pour!” becomes a recipe for a frantic gauntlet that’s not unlike the chaos of rush hour.
But that’s all me waxing poetic about the design—was any of that gameplay successfully conveyed to my programmer teammates?
“Pour!” as it currently exits in-engine, complete with programmer art.
I’d like to think so. This screenshot perfectly captures the gameplay outlined in the mini doc. Every aspect is present: the cocktail shaker being tilted by the cursor, liquid pouring out of the shaker’s nozzle, and of course, the martini glass with a dotted line indicating the required liquid to be poured.
It’s the reason I rely on my drawn concept art so heavily for this project, especially since I’m working with a team of artists. I’ve been told these silly concept visuals are immensely helpful, and as a visual learner myself, I’m always happy to comply. And in combination with written direction, I’ve used these bits of concept art to convey even the oddest of aesthetics.
“Snatch!” sees players try to grab the wig off of Phoenix’s head, much to his rapidly increasing dismay.
“Snatch!” was easily one of my favorite minigames to concept the visuals for. To convey Phoenix’s–an Heirs creator–rapidly increasing desperation, not only does he quickly lose his cool, but his entire art style degrades into a frenetic mess when the cursor is closest to his precious wig.
The idea of making a minigame about stealing Phoenix’s nonexistent wig–seriously, it’s not an actual thing in his lore–was born out of a collaboration session. I ask each VTuber to train me on anything even remotely relevant about their persona, the humorous tidbits are ones I especially cling to. “Snatch!” came about after Phoenix told me about a recurring joke in his chat, that his avatar’s extravagant, beautifully styled hair was in fact a wig.
I love these kinds of stories, instances of naturally occurring goofiness. What better source material to try and adapt for a comedic WarioWare inspired game?
Cool.
Nervous.
Panicked.
Bald.
And with art covered, our tour is complete. I’m stealthily excluding audio here, since it’s a bit harder to take a screenshot of an mp3.
I’ve covered 3 of the 56 minigames I’ve designed for this project so far, with even more on the horizon. Designing that many has been some of the most challenging yet rewarding design work I’ve been privileged to do. With any luck, Heirs will keep me around until we’re well past the triple digits.
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