Rewards
Chests
Originally, players were rewarded with one chest at the end of sector 25 after completing the game. Not only was this anticlimactic, but chests also provided players with rare gems that were only valuable if they decided to play through the game again. At the same time, each of the 5 art segments featured throughout the game were barren and offered little incentive for exploring them. More often than not, players would run straight through each art segment as if it were just another cave without any creatures. In order to solve both of these problems, I came up with the idea of placing a hidden chest somewhere within each art segment and 4 additional chests at the end of sector 25 for a total of 10 chests to be earned throughout play. This provided players with gems throughout their journey that they could utilize going forward while incentivising them to explore and appreciate the art segments. I methodically placed each of the 5 chests, ensuring they got progressively harder to find from one art segment to the next.
Pickaxes
Players begin the game with a starter pickaxe that can be used as a weapon and to mine ore from mineral nodes. When they craft an ax, a random selection of its four components is chosen to create a custom version of the pickaxe with a specific look and benefits. The four components are the material used for the head, handle and core tech plus a unique 3D model. Each component has five tiers of quality with increasing rarity per tier. I designed and documented bonuses for each component based on their rarity. The shape of the ax increases the chance of critically hitting an enemy, the head increases mineral yield from mining, the handle increases swing speed of the ax when mining and the core tech determines the chances of pulling gems from a mining node. Additionally, I refined the mining loop flow for both free and crafted to help the team understand player motivations.
