Indie Game

Meta-progression in games sounds like a mechanics problem. It's actually a research problem.

Brought in as UX researcher on a collaborative indie dungeoncrawler built around indigenous storytelling. The core question: how do you design an achievement system that feels meaningful and fair without copying what everyone else has already done?

Led a competitive audit across the genre and built a full taxonomy of progression mechanisms — six categories (Character Abilities, Achievement & Mastery, Narration & Exploration, Resource Management, Community & Social Progression, Replayability & Variation) with subcategories mapping how the most successful games layer them. Delivered as a concrete framework the team could use to make design decisions. January–March 2024.