Ruined King: A League of Legends Story
Ruined King: A League of Legends story is a Turn-Based RPG set in the League of Legends universe featuring iconic champions and
locations to explore. The player must assemble a group of unlikely heroes stop Viego and his Ruination from destroying the world.
During my year working on Ruined King, I was responsible for implementing various gameplay elements and systems across all levels of the game. Since Ruined King was developed by a relatively small team, many designers ‘wore many hats’ and took on multiple responsibilities. My role involved handling tasks that required large-scale implementation across the entire game.
Role: Game Designer
Project Details:
• Studio: Airship Syndicate
• Worked on the Game for: 1 Year
• Game Engine: Unity
Highlighted Contributions:
• Implementation in Levels
• Polishing Combat Text
• Floor Walking Collision
• UI Menu and Map Implementation
• QA Testing
Implementation
If a broad task required a significant time investment from a designer, it was often assigned to me. I saw this as an opportunity to free up senior designers to focus on key areas like quests and combat, and I was happy to take on those responsibilities.
Walkable Floor Collision:
One of the most important polish tasks I handled was improving the walkable surfaces throughout the entire game. Nothing breaks immersion like seeing a character sink into or float above the floor. My job was to fix areas where the player should have been able to walk but couldn’t, and to refine the geometry to account for every step, mound of dirt, or change in elevation. I was particularly proud of the results, especially in one of the later dungeons—a derelict ruin filled with broken floor panels and rubble. I spent a lot of time ensuring the elevation felt realistic. It’s the kind of detail players might not consciously notice, but the fact that they don’t is a testament to the quality of the work.
Doors and Teleporters:
Another large-scale task I worked on was implementing two types of doors and teleporters: one that transported players to different levels and another that moved them to different locations within the same level. I also fine-tuned the trigger volumes for entering the doors or teleporters and adjusted the XYZ coordinates for accurate exit points. Additionally, I placed VFX arrows to guide players on where to go, ensuring the transitions were as clear as possible.
User Interface Work
Another key aspect of my role involved working on various UI text and implementing it within menus and maps. This included tasks such as fine-tuning combat text, the Bestiary menu, and positioning map icons for clarity and usability.
Combat Text:
The formatting of combat text went through many iterations, but readability was always my top priority. I aimed to make the most important information immediately grab the player’s attention. To achieve this, I used bold text and color coding for emphasis: red for damage, green for healing, yellow for character-specific abilities or features, bold for indicating who is affected by an attack or ability, and bold with color for numerical values. This approach ensured clarity and focus during combat.
Bestiary and Map Icons:
Within these User Interfaces, I adjusted the placement of creature models in the Bestiary menu and positioned various icons across different maps to highlight points of interest. For the Bestiary, I used Microsoft Excel to track the correct creature models and descriptions, and to set the XYZ coordinates and scale for the model viewer section. For map implementation, I worked with a set of icons representing shops, exits, NPCs, and other important locations. Both tasks involved a bit of trial and error—making small adjustments, booting up the game, navigating to the relevant area or menu, checking placement and size, and repeating the process until everything was perfect.
QA Testing and Bug Fixing
Playtest, Bug Report, Repeat:
Ruined King was developed by a small team at Airship Syndicate. While we had dedicated QA staff, everyone participated in weekly playtests and submitted bug reports through JIRA or Slack. We were often assigned specific areas to test, whether it was a level, a combat encounter, or a set of menus. During this process, I learned how to play with the intent to exploit or break the game, but the most valuable skill I gained was writing clear, concise bug reports. These reports needed to provide enough detail for a coworker to easily reproduce the issue. Screenshots were useful for location-based bugs, but video recordings were almost always better for clarity and context.
Bug Fixing:
Towards the end of the project, it became crucial for everyone to jump into the editor and help fix bugs, even if they weren’t directly related to our own work. Throughout my time on the project, I gained valuable insight into other designers’ workflows, learning how quests were structured, how enemies should behave outside of combat, and how various interactable systems functioned. This allowed me to not only address bugs in my own work but also assist other designers in resolving issues within their areas of expertise.
Contractor to Full Time Employee
When I was initially hired to work on Ruined King, I signed a six-month contract, with the understanding that there would be no possibility for an extension. However, during those six months, I earned my place on the design team, and despite the initial terms, I was offered a six-month extension. At the end of that extended contract, I was offered a full-time position as an Associate Designer.
Looking back, I’m incredibly grateful for those opportunities, as the work I did and the lessons I learned shaped me into the person and Game Designer I am today. I discovered that sometimes the most valuable contributions aren’t the complex or ‘glamorous’ tasks like combat or quest design, but rather the tedious jobs—setting up doors, applying shaders to every character model, or polishing floor collision geometry across the game. Doing that work allowed other designers to focus on their most critical tasks. I realized that you don’t need to work on the most visible aspects of gameplay to demonstrate your value to the team.