Genfanad &
Rose Tinted Games
In 2021 and 2022 I worked at Rose Tinted Games, first as a map designer and soon as the Map Team Lead on Genfanad, which stands for Generic Fantasy Adventure, a retro MMO in the vein of Runescape.
My job with Genfanad started with designing a mockup map, divorced of the open world, then moved on to helping rework the starting areas of the game to be more aesthetically pleasing and better guide the player to points of interest.
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Soon I was designing and building new areas, including expanding the open world in all directions, more structured dungeon content, and mockup isolated areas that were to be used for promotion and as examples for future areas as the world map expanded.
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While I got to do a lot of planning and design, I also had to actually built the areas using our custom level editor! Scenery models came from pre made asset packs, and buildings and terrain were essentially 2D textures (plus a heightmap). It was a fun challenge to try to get variety out of very limited tools and resources.
Eventually I ended up as the lead map designer for a team of around 4 or 5 others, and my responsibilities shifted to broader planning and design, though I still got to build areas myself thankfully.
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I worked with the worldbuilders and writers to plan new region expansions to the continent, focusing on coming up with points of interest that gameplay can be framed around and terrain that makes exploring more engaging.
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Dungeon design too was a collaborative effort with the balance designers, coming up with layouts that would encourage specific game loops and player behaviours, while also being visually distinct and memorable.
Because it was a small team (especially for as daunting a project as an MMO) I ended up filling a lot of roles throughout my time there, working in different disciplines as needed.
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I helped concept some designs for the ways the game's crafting systems and skills interacted, pitched areas with moodboards and diagrams, and even got to work on my 2D art skills making color maps, height maps, and wall/floor textures.
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I also ended up doing a lot of documentation, both for the tools that future map designers would have to use and the design process that I liked to go through when making a new area.
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Genfanad was a massive learning experience for me in terms of leading a team, working in collaboration with other areas of development, and learning the rules and conventions of a genre I was previously inexperienced in.
