About Slipping Sanity

Slipping Sanity is a casual runner/platformer inspired by everyday sources of mental health stressors. Players use timed jumps & platforms to avoid incoming obstacles, while traversing distorted depictions of their past and present.

Project Lead

As project lead I worked with nine person team over the course of three months to develop Slipping Sanity using Unity. I carried out a number of duties to ensure the game’s successful completion. During pre-production I worked with the Creative Director, Kyle Remy, to establish the visual style, main mechanics, and project scope. This involved writing a game design and style guide, which I continued to maintain through development. Additionally, I worked throughout the development process to organize various documents, resources, and builds related to the project using Google drive.

Once production began I led bi-weekly meetings to assign tasks, set deadlines, check task progress, address team member concerns, led brainstorming sessions on how to improve the game, and facilitated discussions to overcome obstacles. I also created a Trello board and Discord server for the team. Outside of in person meetings, the team communicated primarily through these platforms. In addition to communication, Trello was used to assign and track progress of tasks.

I also coordinated creation and submittal of weekly test builds along with updated documentation. This entailed testing the build as well as updating the game’s readme with new implemented features, known bugs, installation instructions, and how to play. I then submitted the build and a list of feedback questions to a forum for play testers.

As the game reached completion, I worked with assets from the Slipping Sanity art department to create promotional images, a trailer, and a production vlog. I was also in charge of setting up Slipping Sanity‘s webpage, as well as publishing it on Google Play.

Production Vlog

Lead Designer

As lead designer for Slipping Sanity I provided feedback and guidance to the design team on level layout and obstacle placement. This involved conveying feedback from my own bug testing as well as from play testers. As the game’s primary UX designer, I recorded and analyzed weekly feedback from over 40 play testers. I created a Google Sheet to track and quantify their opinions on implemented and potential features, which can be viewed here.

I was in charge of creating the game’s resources section. This unique feature offers links to websites where players can access mental health resources. While designing the resources section, I researched various organizations to find ones relevant and reputable. With the help of the game’s coding department I implemented four versions of the resources feature. The version found in the pause menu of each of the three chapter levels has links to resources related to the level’s topic. The fourth version is a collection of some general resources along with those specific to each level and can be found on the main menu and in the pause menu of the tutorial, credits, and endless mode.