Published
Zombie Lockdown
Year :
2025
Duration :
6 Months (Development) + 3 Months (Patches & Maintainence)
Platform :
Mobile (Android)
Role :
Game Designer
Collaborators :
5
Core Loop :
Fight through waves of zombies in first‑person, earn resources, upgrade your weapons, and push through 70+ story-driven levels to reach and protect your family.
My Contribution :
Designed and implemented core gameplay systems, including weapon balance, difficulty progression, and the resource economy for 70+ levels.
Built level progression and difficulty curves that gradually ramp challenge while keeping moment‑to‑moment combat satisfying for mobile players.
Tuned enemy health, damage, spawn rates, and wave compositions across multiple zombie archetypes (basic, fast, mutated, boss).
Designed upgrade paths and pricing for weapons and items to create a rewarding “earn → upgrade → feel stronger” loop.
Collaborated closely with programmers, artists, and QA to align design intent with technical constraints and performance on mobile.
Iterated on systems using playtest feedback and analytics to smooth out difficulty spikes and progression bottlenecks.
Design Challenge :
Zombie Lockdown needed to deliver intense FPS action on mobile while sustaining engagement over 70+ levels. Early builds showed two key issues:
New players either felt overwhelmed by enemy waves or underpowered due to weapon stats not matching their skill level.
The resource and upgrade economy felt inconsistent—some players hoarded currency without upgrading, while others upgraded too quickly and trivialized early content.
The challenge was to design a progression, economy, and difficulty system that felt fair, rewarding, and scalable across the entire campaign and wide range of player skills.
My Solution :
Created a difficulty progression framework that defined target challenge levels for each chapter, then mapped enemy stats, spawn patterns, and wave lengths to those targets.
Built balancing sheets for weapons and enemies, standardizing values like DPS, time‑to‑kill, and expected damage taken per encounter to avoid extreme spikes.
Designed a tiered weapon system (base guns → upgraded variants) with clear power jumps and corresponding cost curves so that upgrades always felt meaningful but earned.
Structured the resource economy (drop rates, rewards, mission payouts, upgrade prices) to support a steady upgrade cadence without forcing grind.
Added onboarding-friendly early levels with simpler enemy compositions and generous ammo/health, gradually introducing tougher mutants, bosses, and mixed waves.
Worked with QA to run focused playtests, then adjusted spawn pacing, enemy mix, and reward values where players commonly died or stalled.
Results & Impact :
Contributed as Game Designer (Systems, Economy, Difficulty, Level Design) on a shipped mobile FPS title with 70+ levels, dynamic difficulty scaling, and a full weapon economy.
Helped deliver a campaign where players experience a clear sense of power progression through upgrades while still facing increasing challenge in later chapters.
Playtests and internal reviews highlighted the smooth difficulty ramp and rewarding upgrade loop as key strengths of the overall experience.
More Projects
Published
Zombie Lockdown
Year :
2025
Duration :
6 Months (Development) + 3 Months (Patches & Maintainence)
Platform :
Mobile (Android)
Role :
Game Designer
Collaborators :
5
Core Loop :
Fight through waves of zombies in first‑person, earn resources, upgrade your weapons, and push through 70+ story-driven levels to reach and protect your family.
My Contribution :
Designed and implemented core gameplay systems, including weapon balance, difficulty progression, and the resource economy for 70+ levels.
Built level progression and difficulty curves that gradually ramp challenge while keeping moment‑to‑moment combat satisfying for mobile players.
Tuned enemy health, damage, spawn rates, and wave compositions across multiple zombie archetypes (basic, fast, mutated, boss).
Designed upgrade paths and pricing for weapons and items to create a rewarding “earn → upgrade → feel stronger” loop.
Collaborated closely with programmers, artists, and QA to align design intent with technical constraints and performance on mobile.
Iterated on systems using playtest feedback and analytics to smooth out difficulty spikes and progression bottlenecks.
Design Challenge :
Zombie Lockdown needed to deliver intense FPS action on mobile while sustaining engagement over 70+ levels. Early builds showed two key issues:
New players either felt overwhelmed by enemy waves or underpowered due to weapon stats not matching their skill level.
The resource and upgrade economy felt inconsistent—some players hoarded currency without upgrading, while others upgraded too quickly and trivialized early content.
The challenge was to design a progression, economy, and difficulty system that felt fair, rewarding, and scalable across the entire campaign and wide range of player skills.
My Solution :
Created a difficulty progression framework that defined target challenge levels for each chapter, then mapped enemy stats, spawn patterns, and wave lengths to those targets.
Built balancing sheets for weapons and enemies, standardizing values like DPS, time‑to‑kill, and expected damage taken per encounter to avoid extreme spikes.
Designed a tiered weapon system (base guns → upgraded variants) with clear power jumps and corresponding cost curves so that upgrades always felt meaningful but earned.
Structured the resource economy (drop rates, rewards, mission payouts, upgrade prices) to support a steady upgrade cadence without forcing grind.
Added onboarding-friendly early levels with simpler enemy compositions and generous ammo/health, gradually introducing tougher mutants, bosses, and mixed waves.
Worked with QA to run focused playtests, then adjusted spawn pacing, enemy mix, and reward values where players commonly died or stalled.
Results & Impact :
Contributed as Game Designer (Systems, Economy, Difficulty, Level Design) on a shipped mobile FPS title with 70+ levels, dynamic difficulty scaling, and a full weapon economy.
Helped deliver a campaign where players experience a clear sense of power progression through upgrades while still facing increasing challenge in later chapters.
Playtests and internal reviews highlighted the smooth difficulty ramp and rewarding upgrade loop as key strengths of the overall experience.
More Projects
Published
Zombie Lockdown
Year :
2025
Duration :
6 Months (Development) + 3 Months (Patches & Maintainence)
Platform :
Mobile (Android)
Role :
Game Designer
Collaborators :
5
Core Loop :
Fight through waves of zombies in first‑person, earn resources, upgrade your weapons, and push through 70+ story-driven levels to reach and protect your family.
My Contribution :
Designed and implemented core gameplay systems, including weapon balance, difficulty progression, and the resource economy for 70+ levels.
Built level progression and difficulty curves that gradually ramp challenge while keeping moment‑to‑moment combat satisfying for mobile players.
Tuned enemy health, damage, spawn rates, and wave compositions across multiple zombie archetypes (basic, fast, mutated, boss).
Designed upgrade paths and pricing for weapons and items to create a rewarding “earn → upgrade → feel stronger” loop.
Collaborated closely with programmers, artists, and QA to align design intent with technical constraints and performance on mobile.
Iterated on systems using playtest feedback and analytics to smooth out difficulty spikes and progression bottlenecks.
Design Challenge :
Zombie Lockdown needed to deliver intense FPS action on mobile while sustaining engagement over 70+ levels. Early builds showed two key issues:
New players either felt overwhelmed by enemy waves or underpowered due to weapon stats not matching their skill level.
The resource and upgrade economy felt inconsistent—some players hoarded currency without upgrading, while others upgraded too quickly and trivialized early content.
The challenge was to design a progression, economy, and difficulty system that felt fair, rewarding, and scalable across the entire campaign and wide range of player skills.
My Solution :
Created a difficulty progression framework that defined target challenge levels for each chapter, then mapped enemy stats, spawn patterns, and wave lengths to those targets.
Built balancing sheets for weapons and enemies, standardizing values like DPS, time‑to‑kill, and expected damage taken per encounter to avoid extreme spikes.
Designed a tiered weapon system (base guns → upgraded variants) with clear power jumps and corresponding cost curves so that upgrades always felt meaningful but earned.
Structured the resource economy (drop rates, rewards, mission payouts, upgrade prices) to support a steady upgrade cadence without forcing grind.
Added onboarding-friendly early levels with simpler enemy compositions and generous ammo/health, gradually introducing tougher mutants, bosses, and mixed waves.
Worked with QA to run focused playtests, then adjusted spawn pacing, enemy mix, and reward values where players commonly died or stalled.
Results & Impact :
Contributed as Game Designer (Systems, Economy, Difficulty, Level Design) on a shipped mobile FPS title with 70+ levels, dynamic difficulty scaling, and a full weapon economy.
Helped deliver a campaign where players experience a clear sense of power progression through upgrades while still facing increasing challenge in later chapters.
Playtests and internal reviews highlighted the smooth difficulty ramp and rewarding upgrade loop as key strengths of the overall experience.