Gone Astray
Physics Platformer Game
I created the entire game interface for Gone Astray using Figma, designed animated collectable scraps using Aseprite & Procreate, and made level designs using Tiled.
With our cross-functional team, we won the Most Polished Award for our gravity platformer ‘Gone Astray’ which we presented during a showcase with 600+ audiences.
Role
Game Designer
UI/UX Designer
Artist
Team
1 Project Lead
4 Game Developers
4 Artists/Designers
2 Sound Designers
Timeline
16 Weeks
Jan-May 2025
Skills/Tools
Adobe Suite
Aseprite
Figma
Procreate
Tiled
GAME CONTEXT
What is Gone Astray?
Drifting in the vast expanse of space, a lone canine astronaut named Laika awakens in the wreckage of their spaceship, thousands of miles from home. To survive, they must traverse the remnants of the ship to reach the damaged escape pod in the docking bay on the other side of the ship. With no supplies but a magnetic suit and their own two legs, they must rely on controlling their distant home world to change the direction of their gravity within the ship. As they navigate through the increasingly damaged sections, Laika must collect scraps to repair the escape pod and slowly piece together the mystery of the wrecked ship.
Display
Promotional Video
MY ROLE
Key Game Elements
By the end of our project, we had a total of 8 complete UI screens and 24 levels ranging from easy to hard difficulty. I implemented a variety of important features within each level, such as the ability to track when Laika’s gravity gets out of control or creating tilesets to visualize the ship’s circumference.
✦ Start Menu, Studio Logo
✦ Level Selection, Orbiting Planets
✦ Level Design, Gravity Timer, Scrap Collection
✦ Earth Controller, UI Setting, Minimap
✦ Level Design Testing
✦ Shipwall & Metal Tilesets
TAKEAWAYS
A Fast, Fulfilling Semester
This is one of my proudest projects that I worked on from design to delivery, where I saw many little kids and adults play test Gone Astray from level 1 to level 24 with lots of enthusiasm. During this process, my team definitely encountered many challenges.
Time is LIMITED
As a semester project, the term ‘time-constrained’ came to be very true when we had to brainstorm a game concept in February and design + develop the entire game by end of April. This meant that designs needed to be pumped out fast, and some sacrifices needed to be made if it took too long to engineer.
Happy Team = Dedicated Collaboration
At the beginning of game concepting, my team had many conflicts about picking the right idea and that slowed our progress for two weeks. However, we finally came together to combine both game concepts into a completely new idea that we all approved of, resulting in our dedicated efforts for ‘Gone Astray’.
With the many positive comments that we have gotten during playtesting, I look forward to releasing ‘Gone Astray’ on Steam and transforming it into a mobile gravity game in the near future.
✿ yl3644@cornell.edu ✿
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