DEVON GRITTON
TopHat
What is TopHat
Tophat is a casual Arcade Battler game made for Meta Horizons playable on Web, Mobile and Quest Vr headsets. I was tasked with creating the core Tophat Level and all Associated gameplay mechanics provided within a pitch doc by upper management at Nearlight. As the sole Designer on the project my work touched on all aspect of the projects design a list of my responsibilities can be found below
My Responsibilities
Designing a replayable social playground
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Designed and iterated on level variants from pre-production through release, including integration of Meta AI into existing levels.
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Defined level design pillars and supported the team in planning the overall direction and content roadmap of the game.
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Developed the Horizon Level Design workflow for Studio Nearlight, streamlining practices to create a more efficient development lifecycle.
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Led the design team workflow, establishing a flexible review schedule, mentoring designers, and managing the onboarding process to the Horizon Worlds Editor.
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Designed core level mechanics to enable emergent gameplay within TopHat.
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Analyzed player feedback and user heatmaps to identify data-driven iteration targets.
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Created and maintained asset templates to ensure gameplay prefabs were functional, up to date, and fit for use within TopHat.
Documentation and communication
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Created the TopHat GDD for Meta and iterated on it based on stakeholder feedback and the evolving requirements of the game.
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Documented all planned gameplay mechanics in Confluence for use by the Art and Code teams.
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Managed feature handovers between Code, Art, and Design throughout development.
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Organized studio playtests and stakeholder feedback sessions to gather targeted insights on game progress.
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Took on cross-disciplinary task assignment in the absence of a producer, ensuring milestone goals and deadline criteria were tracked to meet the agile timeline set by Meta.
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Attended key meetings with Meta to relay engine feedback and request new features.
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Managed communication between Directors and the team, relaying feedback and highlighting when feature requests were not feasible due to time or engine constraints.
Designing levels fit for multiple platforms
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Organized play sessions and test criteria across Mobile, Web, and VR devices.
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Tracked and reported key platform differences to ensure consistency and performance across all platforms.
Art and Code Support
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Assisted the Code Team by providing focused testing for key persistent online features.
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Reported Art and Code bugs to support timely resolution.
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Maintained consistent, clear communication between departments to monitor overall game health and assess deadline feasibility.
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Created and oversaw all handover briefs with both the Code Team and the Art Team to ensure smooth cross-disciplinary collaboration.
