CHALLENGE

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, a cross-platform co-op roguelike game, needed design specs that accounted for complex cross-platform interaction requirements while also being easily understood and executed by cross-functional teams.

APPROACH

Our design spec documentation initially covered control scheme differences by showing changes needed between touchscreen, controller, and keyboard/mouse inputs on each individual screen, which accounted for the complexity but was difficult for cross-functional teams to fully digest.

Using feedback I collected from the team, I created a better, more accessible system by:

• Adding cross-platform requirements to specs during each feature’s first dev pass

• Creating specs that covered key actions across all screens in an accessible way by framing them as a player story rather than isolated screens

• Adding visual references detailing how screens needed to scale for each target display (tv/monitor, phone, and tablet)

RESULTS

My new spec design and process was a force multiplier for the team’s overall productivity, creating faster alignment between teams and removing the time consuming step of retrofitting screens for alternate control schemes and displays late in development.