My work at Refactor Games

Try Again

Check it out on Steam!

Over 25,000 downloads with Overwhelmingly Positive reviews

What is Try Again?

Try Again is a fast-paced 2.5D Parkour Platformer developed by USC students as part of the Advanced Game Project. Playing as the energetic protagonist Benny, the player makes their way through a hazardous facility while conversing with the overseer called the designer. It has received very favorable feedback by several well-known companies in the industry, including Rockstar, Epic Games, and Insomnia. It was also featured at the 2023 USC Games Expo!

"...One of the top three student games we've seen" -Rockstar Games

"You guys nailed it. That was incredible" -Rockstar Games

My Work

Role: Designer

Brainstorming

Design is ultimately a process that iterates upon itself and my process begins first in my notebook. I write down notes and sketch any ideas that come to me, with a "blue sky" mentality. This provides me plenty of room to grow and change these ideas as I go, without having to worry about the constraints of the game.

Prototyping

Prototyping is essential for iteration, especially for the shipping container sequence featured above. This entire sequence was designed by me with the original idea being to challenge the player to make quick movements in order to avoid being crushed. After receiving feedback from Rockstar that this section played out too slowly, we iterated and improved on the shipping container sequence you now see in the game!

Testing New Sequences

These two sequences I personally designed, implemented, and iterated on in Unity. The chessboard sequence was built around the idea that Benny is just a pawn in the Designer's game, while Benny proves himself to be bigger than this by cleverly dodging and avoiding traps and other obstacles. In one of the original builds of the game, my designs occupied half (2 out of 4 sequences) major points in the game and were met by favorable feedback from playtesters.

Title Screen

I designed the title screen of Try Again to feel more cinematical and immersive for the player. The story of Try Again focuses on the narrative between the character Benny and the Designer and I wanted to emphasize Benny's patience to finally reach his goal: becoming a videogame main character. Benny has been waiting for this moment for 4 years since development and with just a simple idle animation of Benny sleeping, we get the impression that he has been waiting patiently a long time for this. This kind of title screen is also inspired by Santa Monica Studio's God of War, which features a title screen where Kratos is shown waiting patiently in a forest before chopping down a tree and starting the story as soon as the player is ready.

Swing Bars

One of my major tasks was figuring out how to emphasize to the player what objects in the environment are interactable or not. Various concept art ideas included scratches on the wall, neon tape, and spray paint decals. I really liked the industrial warehouse aesthetic of the game and felt like bright yellow tape was the way to go. It's a striking color against the grey-box environment and is easily recognizable when the player is constantly running forward.

What I Learned

This project was a major learning experience for me that I took a lot away from; I made plenty of mistakes and there were also other factors out of my control. One of my biggest mistakes was not taking enough initiative with my work and not communicating it well. A lot of my work fell through because it simply was not polished enough by the deadline and this was due to me not working close enough to the team and failing to rapidly iterate on my ideas. To improve on this, I plan on streamlining my process to work well with the team so I can make new iterations that are polished and fun to play in time to meet deadlines.

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