Laura DeCarli's Portfolio
User Experience & Quality Assurance
In my previous academic projects and game jam projects, I've often taken up tasks related to testing to:
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make sure that the game is easy to understand and use,
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verify if the intended player experience and the actual player experience match,
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identify technical bugs and design issues and formulate design solutions,
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identify how to improve and polish the game,
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learn more about what works and what does not work in our design choices.
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As QA, I have learned how to research bugs, write bug reports, fine-tune game mechanics and systems and to be critical about both my own design choices and those of other team members. I took on these tasks in Goldash (2022), Pumpking! (2022), Froggy Mahyem (2024) and Tarot Hallow (2024).
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As User Experience Designer I have learned to write playtesting protocols for external playtesters, to construct questionnaires, prepare and conduct interviews as well as observe playtesters. I then analyze the results of the playtests to identify issues that need to be fixed and areas of improvement for the player experience. This is a role I'm undertaking in my current thesis project, which is a two-players couch co-op game, as well as in past projects like Froggy Mahyem (2024) and Goldash (2022).
User Experience Design
Current Project's Working Title: Co-op Thesis Game
About our thesis project:
We are writing our Master's thesis on game design processes and methodologies, and to test out our process we decided to create a 3D two-players couch co-op game.
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The player characters are two very specialized wizards: one can use magic to pull objects towards them while the other can push them away. They need to work together and coordinate their magic to solve puzzles and opening paths within a castle.
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We have completed the prototyping phase and are now in the process of completing the hand-in version for our thesis, but have plans to further polish and expand the game after our studies.
What did I do for this project as user experience designer?
As user experience designer for this project:
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I created two playtesting protocols, one to check for usability and accessibility and the other to evaluate how well the game performed in regard to cooperative gameplay.
- The main method utilized in both cases as been observing the playtesters and taking notes related to the research question that the session was focused on. For checking that the game was working as intended, it's usability and accessibility, I made a simple list of things to check as yes/no, leaving space for additional notes, observations and feedback. While for evaluating how well the prototype performed as a cooperative game I applied Aghabeigi's Cooperative Performance Metrics (2006).
- I also noted down a few questions for a short post-session interview to ask follow-up questions regarding the playtesters player experience with regard to cooperative play.
- I then wrote reports for the rest of the team to summarize the results, highlight areas of improvement and propose solutions to the issues identified.
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I've also participated in this project in the roles of gameplay designer, level designer, UI designer and producer.
Co-op thesis team:
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Producer:
Laura DeCarli
Tech Lead:
​Hallur Kristinn Hallsson
Art Lead:
Game Designers:
Prototype: Froggy Mayhem (2024)
Creating battlemaps for a turn-based strategy videogame:
I worked on a prototype for a turn-based strategy videogame with other three students as a project for ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track).
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My main focus during this project was to learn how to design and implement battlemaps using hexagonal tiles for the combat system designed by Małgorzata Maria Mikosz. I have however also taken on UX design tasks.
What did I do for this project as user experience designer?
I developed the playtesting protocol and conducted external playtests along with Małgorzata Maria Mikosz. The main methods I've employed for this project have been qualitative observations, the think-aloud protocol and qualitative interviews.
Froggamers Team
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Game Programmers
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Game Designers
Goldash (2022)
About Goldash:
Goldash is an endless runner mobile game created by Qizue Team for DBGA's online courses in Game Design and Game Programming.
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The player plays the role of Trasher, a cleaner robot tasked with collecting the trash under the city of Goldash.
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During the run, the player has to jump to navigate the environment and to defeat hostile robots.
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However, jumping too much can cause Trasher to overheat, and eventually and explode if they don't cool down by releasing energy by falling on enemies or with ice cubes.
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They can also pick up consumable power-ups that will help them in their run, which can be upgraded through the in-game shops by spending the gears gained from collecting the trash.
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In addition to collecting the trash, the player can also complete various achievements and gain more gears in addition to character skins to personalize Trasher.
What did I do for this project as user experience designer?
Since the playtesters needed for testing were available only remotely and with schedules incompatible with our team, I decided to create a questionnaire for them to fill-out after playing the game, and then analyzed the results.
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I also worked on this project as game designer, QA, project manager and art director.
Qizue Team:
Game Programmer:
Game Designers:
Quality Assurance
Prototype: Tarot Hallow (2024)
Designing for game balance:
This prototype is a group project made for the course Play Lab as part of ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track). Our task was to create a prototype to learn more about game balance, and we choose to work on a card-game where we had to design and balance abstract game mechanics, rather than balancing values of game objects and mechanics like we already have in other projects.
About Tarot Hallow:
Tarot Hallow is a four-player card-game that uses two decks: the Major Arcana deck and the minor arcana deck. At the start of each round a Major Arcana card is revealed, the players will play face down a minor arcana card from their hand and reveal the card they played after everyone had played theirs. The player who has played the minor arcana card with the highest number gets to add the Major Arcana to their Reading. Each Major Arcana card belongs to one of three categories, Magic, Monster and Shadow, and can only be placed in the corresponding category's slot of their Reading. If a card already occupies a category's slot, the next card of the same category scored will be placed reversed (and the next one upright and so on). While the player(s) who played a court card will use the power of that court card:
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Pages: "Switch a Major Arcna card from one player's Reading (not yours) to another player's Reading (not yours), without changing its position. It has to be in the correct slot."
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Knights: "Give two cards of your choice from your Hand of Fate to another player and take two random ones from their hand."
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Queens: "Change another player's Major Arcana cards' position from upright to reversed, or vice versa."
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Kings: "Change one of your Major Arcana cards' position from reversed to upright, or viceversa."
The game ends when there are no more Major Arcana cards to be scored.
What did I do for this project as QA?
As QA in this project I mainly focused on balancing of the cards' effects and the cards' scores. While balancing the scores was a relatively simple process of adjusting numerical values, balancing the more abstract cards' effects required a lot of in-house playtesting to observe how they affected the flow of the game and players' strategies.
Future developments?
The prototype needs some refinements to be turned into a proper card game. It would be worth to re-design elements of in response to the feedback received by external playtesters: Major Arcana cards, for example, could play a more important role during the game through special effects.
The Tarot Hallow Team:
Game Design, Game Mechanics Balancing and QA
Emma Buetow Peláez
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Game Art
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Flavor Text
Emma Buetow Peláez
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Scores Balancing
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Rulebook Design
Prototype: Froggy Mayhem (2024)
Creating battlemaps for a turn-based strategy videogame:
I worked on a prototype for a turn-based strategy videogame with other three students as a project for ITU's Master's in Games (Design Track).
​
My main focus during this project was to learn how to design and implement battlemaps using hexagonal tiles for the combat system designed by Małgorzata Maria Mikosz.
What did I do for this project as QA?
The game presented many different features and was quite system based: with different enemy types each with their own behaviors, a turn-based combat system, a level up system, player character stats and abilities, etc. I've taken care of always testing new feature, checking that they were working as intended and looking for bugs, and then reporting everything to the tech team.
Froggamers Team
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Game Programmers
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Game Designers
Goldash (2022)
About Goldash:
Goldash is an endless runner mobile game created by Qizue Team for DBGA's online courses in Game Design and Game Programming.
-
The player plays the role of Trasher, a cleaner robot tasked with collecting the trash under the city of Goldash.
-
During the run, the player has to jump to navigate the environment and to defeat hostile robots.
-
However, jumping too much can cause Trasher to overheat, and eventually and explode if they don't cool down by releasing energy by falling on enemies or with ice cubes.
-
They can also pick up consumable power-ups that will help them in their run, which can be upgraded through the in-game shops by spending the gears gained from collecting the trash.
-
In addition to collecting the trash, the player can also complete various achievements and gain more gears in addition to character skins to personalize Trasher.
What did I do for this project as QA?
As QA for this project I've fine-tuned all elements of the gameplay during the run and of the game's economy), as well worked on bug catching, and reported everything to the rest of the team.
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I also worked on this project as game designer, user experience designer, project manager and art director.
Qizue Team:
Game Programmer:
Game Designers:
Pumpking! (2022)
About Pumpking!:
Pumpking! is little 2-players Halloween-themed game made for the One Minute Game Jam #8. The two players chase each other around a cornfield in rounds of 30s: in the first round they can choose if they want to start out playing the role of the escapee or of the chaser, while in the second the roles will be swapped. The players can also choose between two playable characters: Pumpkin and Scarecrow, each with their signature ability. The Pumpkin can sprint, while the Scarecrow can push away or pull towards themselves the other player.
What did I do for this project as QA?
As QA for this project I've fine-tuned the player characters' abilities, the power-ups and the traps.
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I've also participated in the project as gameplay designer and level designer.
Pumpking!'s Team:
Game Programmers:
Cristian Ghiorzi, Nicolò Bertoli
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Game Designer:
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3D Artist & Animator:
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Music Composer:
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Sound Designer: