Raphael Colucci is a level 5 student game designer at Staffordshire University, UK. He specializes in concept design, mechanic design and level design.
CONTRACTED WORK
CONTRACTED WORK
The following is a selection of paid placements and in-studio work.
MechHead
ARCADE GAME WINNER
6 weeks Placement
Main Contributions
2 Brand New Levels
Redesigned Shop
4 Iterated-on Levels
3 New Abilities
Design Documentation
Documentation Download Link
MechHead is a fast-paced round-based arena shooter which pays homage to the genre classics. Customise your mech, smash high scores, and unleash carnage to win the crowd's favour!
MechHead was developed over six weeks as part of Staffordshire University’s 2024 1UP placement scheme. This program brought together students from various levels of study to collaborate in a studio simulation environment at the Stoke-on-Trent campus.
When I joined the MechHead team in summer 2024 as a game designer, it was decided that the game would go through a complete refactor. In the meantime, the design team was tasked with improving replayability and making the game feel less repetitive. We identified a few areas to focus on:
Adding optional abilities, to help differentiate runs and allow the player to vary strategies.
Making weapons feel more unique.
Adding meta-progression, by redesigning the shop phase and adding permanent unlocks of new weapons and abilities.
Giving levels a stronger identity, either by evolving existing ones or creating new ones.
I have had my hands in all these different areas, as the rest of the design team, but I especially focused on the latter 2 points. Main accomplishments include designing and integrating 2 new levels, iterating on 4 existing levels, creating a shop level and designing new abilities.
As an example of the work provided, here’s some of the documentation produced for one of my new levels, Gastown, meant to illustrate to the team its main features.
Additionally, here’s a selection of works produced for the project, destined to populate the design document and support the tech team for integration. Hard numbers are not present in these diagrams but are documented in the design document.
STUDENT WORKS
STUDENT WORKS
The following is a selection of personal and group student projects.
Staffordshire University, 2021-2025
Western Roundup
20 members
8 weeks
Contributions
Research on boards in party games
Board Concept
Board Design
Item Design
Western Roundup is a 4-player party game set in a far west environment and inspired by the Mario Party franchise. It was developed over 8 weeks by a team of 20. It features a game board phase with unique mechanics, along with 3 minigames.
For this project, I took the lead on designing the gameplay loop, and the board game side of the experience. The board was designed to cater to the wide range of player types usually found in the genre by providing a high level of expectancy while offering a deeper but optional level of strategy through its looping design, akin to lanes in a MOBA.
Leaning into the theme, players aim to get richer by exploring different environments, each with a different balance of risk/reward: explore the river for slow but safe gains, go through the mine for huge but uncertain rewards, or gamble it all at the saloon. This materialized in thorough design considerations of tile mechanics and placement. Replayability, variations and player interactions are supported by a series of optional items acquired randomly in-game.
The board and items design are based on a 34-page research on board phases in minigame compilations I did for this project. Excerpts from my documentation package can be found below, along with a download link for the complete documentation (all elements present are my work). Kieran O’Neil was responsible for engine integration on the board level. See the itch.io page for full credits.
Excerpts from Western Roundup Design Docs
-
![]()
Research
-
![]()
-
![]()
-
![]()
-
![]()
-
![]()
-
![]()
...
-
![]()
Board Design
-
![]()
-
![]()
...
-
![]()
Item Design
-
![]()
-
![]()
...
Cheese on Traps
Sole Contributor
4 weeks
Cheese on Traps is 2.5D puzzle-platformer inspired by games like Escape Goat, Toki Tori and Mutant Mudds.
The player controls a mouse in single-screen levels and is tasked with collecting every bit of cheese to complete the level. The mouse is unable to jump but can run on any wall and ceiling to activate switches and avoid traps.
Even though the camera does not move the player must manage a large play area at once: on specific tiles, the mouse can travel back and forth between the foreground and background areas.
Through The Mountain Pass
Sole Contributor
4 weeks
Research Documentation
Through The Mountain Pass is a 2D platformer focusing on air and wall movement and inspired by games such as Donkey Kong Country Returns.
The player controls The Peaceful Swordsman, who must travel the mountain pass and avoid traps along the way, in order to reach the mountain top.
This project focuses on character movement. The character can air dash, wall jump, slide on walls (automatically or manually, depending on the wall type), grab corners and climb.
Yes Chef!
2 members
8 weeks
Contributions
Concept & Mechanics
Game Flow & Progression
Experimental Controller Concepts
Other Contributor: Alex Wood (concept, technical design and development)
Yes Chef! is a two-player party game challenging players to collaboratively run a kitchen. Upon receiving an order, players will need to gather ingredients, prepare them, assemble and serve.
The players are given separate roles and tasks to accomplish during the process, but also different unconventional inputs and controllers: the kitchen bleeds into reality and actions such as cutting, rolling, or looking through catalogues come out of the digital space to become part of the physical world.
Two players are separated into two different roles/stations: a head chef and a commis.
The head chef controls the character in 3D space and is responsible for receiving orders, cooking ingredients, and assembling them. Only they can see the screen. They also have a physical restaurant menu on their station that they can use to check which ingredients are needed for the recipe.
On the other end, the commis is tasked with ordering and preparing ingredients. Ordering is done through a physical catalogue and an ordering console, and preparing ingredients is done through other experimental inputs such a cutting station and a rolling station, where they need to mimic the act of cutting and rolling.
Excerpts from Yes Chef! Design Docs
Game
Concepts
Cartographer
Sole Contributor
12 weeks
Cartographer is a single-player, third-person Action-Adventure game, simulating the life of a cartographer.
Topo is the last person left in his village. It is time for him to leave too and make a new life in the city. Surrounded by monster-infested woods and mountains, the only way out of the village for Topo is to pay the extortionate price of the carriage, stopping there once a week to drop adventures, and coming to explore the abandoned mines. To make enough money to pay for his ticket, Topo decides to start exploring the mines and make maps to sell to adventurers.
The game features a blend of action elements in the dungeons and adventure elements in the village. In both areas, the game is not driven by reflex challenges but by solving puzzles through observation and preparation.
Project Bishop
3 members
12 weeks
Contributions
Concept
Progression
Puzzles 01 to 06 & 13 to 15
Project Bishop is an escape room experience with a Sci-Fi horror atmosphere featuring set designs and ambience reminiscent of classic sci-fi horror films from the ’80s such as the ‘Alien’ franchise.
The escape room is set on a mining ship in the late 21st century with an Alien loose on board. The objective is to find a way to get rid of the Alien to “escape” the danger.
A set design featuring future-retro elements along with an array of special effects helps to fully immerse players in the experience and make them feel like they are in an eighties movie.
The sixty-minute experience features 4 rooms and 20 puzzles.