LABSTERIUM
Labsterium is a studio that designs and creates physical puzzles to commission. The projects develop much faster than video games, which allowed me to work on several of them during my time at Labsterium, first as an intern and then as a freelancer. Find out more on their website:
Here is a letter of recommendation written by my awesome Lead Game Designer to summarise my past experience at Labsterium :
THE FUNHOUSE
April 2022
Team of 10
In this horrific escape game, players are trapped in the Horror Palace, forced to endure the whims of a killer clown. The game is spread out over several rooms and the pace is always high and spooky.
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My roles :
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Design 3 new puzzles to add to the existing game
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Write the narrative of the new puzzles
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Produce the design document
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Communicate with the client to find their needs
This was my first freelance job after my previous experience as an intern at Labsterium. As such, I learned to work autonomously and with responsibility, and to be strong with proposals.
My work began by playing the Funhouse to get a feel for the atmosphere, before starting to think of game ideas to add to the experience. After several brainstorms with the clients, we validated our ideas. I then designed and documented the puzzles so that they could be produced by the other teams.
THE BOMB
June 2021
Team of 10
This puzzle box in the shape of a suitcase contains a fake bomb that the players have to defuse within the time limit. An exciting challenge for 2 to 6 players!
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My roles :
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Designing the game's puzzles and narration
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Produce the design document
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Monitoring the development of the project
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Organize playtests of the game
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Based on the pitch, game flow and narrative, I designed each puzzle before documenting them for the other teams (graphics, programming, electronics and construction) to start production. As this project was completed during my internship, I was able to communicate with the teams for much of the production and organize the playtesting of the box, which allowed me to learn a lot about puzzle design and produce more detailed documents.
THE EXFILTRATION OF FRANÇOIS FERRY
July 2021
Team of 10
The exfiltration of François Ferry is a puzzle box produced in 10 copies, consisting of a game box connected to a tablet. Players relive the story of François Ferry through a ship's diary, who has to be extradited from the city of La Rochelle during the war.
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My roles :
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Find design solutions following specific guidelines
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Designing the game's puzzles and narration
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Rewrite part of the narrative
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Communicate with the client to find their needs
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Produce the design document
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This was a particularly interesting project to undertake. When I was given the project, there was an unsolvable bug that frequently disconnected the tablet from the box, making the game unplayable! I was then asked to redesign the games to simulate a connection between the tablet and the box, without them actually being connected... And since all the boxes except one were already delivered, all the changes I could make had to modify either the easily deliverable paper document (ship's diary, map) or the programming code of the tablet and the box, not forgetting to communicate with the client to follow their design guidelines.
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Working with so many constraints pushed me to redouble my efforts and creativity to find a solution... A challenge that I managed to overcome, fortunately!
To simulate this connection between the tablet and the box, I changed the order of the puzzles, rewrote part of the scenario, created new puzzles, and discreetly used blocking codes on the tablet and on the box, whose password was given by the other party.
... AND MORE!
Not all the projects I have worked on are published yet, but here is an overview of the other or smaller roles I have had: ​
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Organize and conduct playtests on a puzzle box
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Designing puzzles and writing a design document for another escape room
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Helping with puzzle design and documentation on multiple other projects
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Create and document game pitches