Horizon Worlds (Meta) - Area 52
Area 52 is a quirky VR puzzle adventure where you escape a research facility and save a baby alien
Role: Senior Game Designer
Engine: Unity
Project: Meta Horizon Website
Team Size: 4+
As Senior Game Designer on the team, I led the puzzle design, theme, and implementation of this experience. I partnered with tools engineers to prioritize issues with creation tools for the puzzle adventure vertical of Horizon. The tools for Horizon were still in development at the time, making it a fun challenge to help stabilize and improve the product and work within many constraints to get the games to run on the initial Quest.
To see my puzzle design process, check out the article I wrote on designing puzzles!
Defined UGC tools needed to create puzzle adventure experiences in Horizon
Defined creative direction and mood, setting guidelines for audio and art
Created sketches, blockouts, and iterations of the level layouts
Designed all puzzles in the experience
Defined the user flow from puzzle to puzzle
Led playtesting and feedback so we could prioritize and iterate on our work
Wrote detailed plans to improve UGC tooling
Contributions
Final art was done by Lam Nguyen!