ALIEN: ROGUE INCURSION
Alien: Rogue Incursion is an all-new action-horror VR game that transforms you into ex-Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks on a dangerous mission to the uncharted planet Purdan, featuring innovative real-life motion gameplay, a whole-body loadout, and the most cunning Xenomorphs ever encountered.
Technical Designer - Survios
As a Technical Designer on Alien: Rogue Incursion, I owned mission implementation, encounter design, gameplay interactions, and cinematic integration for Missions 3 (Xenomorph Nest) and 4 (Mess Hall to Operations). My work focused on creating player experiences that blended exploration, narrative delivery, and combat while building reusable systems that accelerated content production.
● Mission Scripting:
Established scripting standards and built a scalable mission pipeline.
Developed reusable logic nodes and scripting actors.
Sole owner of scripting for Missions 3 (Nest) and 4 (Mess Hall to Ops Holdout).
● Gameplay Systems:
Designed and implemented modular interactive objects including Valve Wheels, Hard Drives, Fuel Cells, Circuit Breakers, and Loot Containers.
● Cinematics:
Implemented and polished scenes such as the First Xeno Encounter, Facehugger Shootout, and Davis Decapitation.
● Combat Design:
Contributed to early Xeno combat R&D.
Created reusable logic for Xeno Holdouts and scripted major combat events.
● Design Tools:
Built test gyms with modular Blueprints and a custom button system for fast designer/QA iteration.
Mission Scripting & Combat Encounters
Xenomorph Nest - Elevator Holdout
The Xenomorph Nest level ends with a holdout in a cargo loading bay next to an elevator.
Players must fend off numerous Xenomorphs long enough until the elevator arrives!
The player experience goal for this holdout is to make it feel like the player barely made it out of the nest alive.
This means the pacing of Xenomorph spawns, where they spawn, the pathing they take, and the space they take up are critical.
The player should feel constant tension and be constantly on their toes.
The Xenomorph nest is the last place you want to let your guard down.
A player behavior goal for this holdout is to have the player actively engage with the Xenomorphs as they spawn, tracking them and killing them on first sight, instead of hiding away in a corner.
To address both the player experience and behavior goals, I made a custom Holdout spawning system to manage the schedule at which Xenomorphs arrive.
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The Holdout spawning system adjusts the schedule for Xenomorph arrival depending on how fortified the space is.
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If the space is fortified, Xenomorphs arrive in a more staggered pattern
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The Holdout spawning system handles when Swarms are spawned.
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Only 1 Swarm can be active at any time
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A Swarm cannot start if a Swarm is currently ongoing.
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A Swarm consists of Waves, which are designer-authored.
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A Wave consists of any number of Xenomorph spawns, with an adjustable delay between the spawns.
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Multiple Waves can be active.
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Waves arrive at specific intervals, regardless of whether the previous wave(s) were killed.
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If players do not engage and kill Waves as they arrive, they will be overrun by the amount of Xenomorphs.
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A secondary player experience goal for this holdout is to provide the player fantasy of having to fortify a space against Xenomorphs.
This scene from Aliens served as a great inspiration for the player fantasy goal.
To address the secondary player experience, this combat encounter introduces Fortification.
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Fortify the space before the fight starts to give yourself an edge against the Xenomorphs.
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Players can close doors and vent shutters to limit the amount of entry points the Xenomorphs can come from.
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Fortification greatly limit the pathing of Xenomorphs, making their attack vectors more predictable.
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This makes it more manageable to keep track of where Xenomorphs can get to you.
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The result is a well paced encounter that leaves just enough breathing room for the player to reload their weapons, check their Motion Tracker, and prepare for the next fight.
Vent Ambush
The player is on their way back to the Mess Hall to retrieve their Pulse Rifle. While traversing through the vents, the player encounters an ambush.
This ambush rewards cautious and perceptive players. The ambush is telegraphed to the player with a Motion Tracker ping.
Next, the player sees some ammo in a vent opening. But just above the ammo, is a lurking Xenomorph ready to pounce on unsuspecting players. STAY FROSTY!
Mess Hall Fight
As the player returns to the Mess Hall, they notice several Xenomorphs patrolling the second floor. The player can keep track of where the Xenomorphs are with the Motion Tracker. After a short while, the area falls silent, creating a deceptive sense of safety, with Xenomorphs lying in wait, motionless. However, vigilant players will remember the locations where their motion tracker stopped pinging, enabling them to identify where Xenomorphs are hiding.
Pulse Rifle Fight
Having made it back to the Mess Hall, the player retrieves their Pulse Rifle, only to encounter more Xenomorphs.
Luckily, mid to long range is where the Pulse Rifle shines, and Mess Hall is a pretty large space.
A skill we start introducing here is the ability to swap between primary weapons.
Sometimes, the shotgun is not the right weapon because of the distance to the target.
Players must be ready to switch weapons to be effective depending on the situation.
This is a skill that is later tested in OPS Holdout.
OPS Holdout
The player makes it to Operations (OPS), and attempts to send a message. However, the satellite antenna needs to be aligned, which draws Xenomorphs. The player must hold off Xenomorphs long enough for the message to be sent.
This holdout shares numerous similarities with the Nest elevator holdout, including the same design goals and using the same Holdout spawning system. This holdout is the first holdout where the player has their own arsenal unlocked along with fortification options.
One of the player behavior goals for this holdout was to force the player to move through the space, so I've designed the objective so that the player has to take their tablet from one computer on the lower floor to the top level cat walk.
The fight transitions between spaces where each weapon shines. The lower floor is more open and has longer sightlines - perfect for the Pulse Rifle; while the upper floor has shorter sightlines and more cramped spaces - more suited for the shotgun.
Cinematics
The following are cinematics I've implemented.
Nest Cinematics
The player is kidnapped by Xenomorphs and they wake up deep in their Nest, unable to move and free themselves.
In front of them are a number of Ovomorphs - which contain Facehuggers. The player does their best to fight off the Facehuggers, but ultimately fails.
The main emotion I wanted to drive home with these cinematics were a sense of powerlessness.
I wanted players to feel like they climbed out of the lowest of low.
The facehugger shootout cinematic was designed so that each Ovomorph only opens after the previous Facehugger is killed.
This draws out the tension of whether or not the player can actually fight off the Facehuggers.
The Climb
This foreshadows to both the player and player character what happens to someone who gets face-hugged.
Is the player character ultimately doomed?
Davis Decapitation
The player reunites with Davis, but Davis' body is no longer operational.
Davis' body is way too heavy for the player character to carry, so they must execute Synthetic Emergency Separation Protocol.
In simpler terms, the player must cut his head off, and escape the nest with it.
One of the core pillars of the Alien series is body horror and this scene was designed specifically to deliver on that.
Davis Tablet Transfer
Havin made it out of the nest, the player character must now transfer Davis' consciousness from the Synth head to her Tablet.
But the procedure itself doesn't look like it's comfortable. This was another chance to drive in the body horror pillar often found in the Alien IP.
Mystery Gas in a Suitcase
Our heroes discover the remains of someone who was part of an inside job. The player gets sprayed by a mysterious gas after opening their suitcase. The gas causes them to vomit, foreshadowing a further plot point later in the game.
Gameplay Systems
Activities
I prototyped, and brought to polish multiple non-combat gameplay activities such as:
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Hard Drives
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The player must gather the correct hard drives, and scan them at a terminal
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The Hard drives activity was a great way to get the player to explore and become familiar with a space before a holdout happens.
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Circuit Breakers
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The player must shoot the circuit Breaker glass with the Pulse Rifle, and shoot the exposed Circuit Breaker with any weapon to open the corresponding door.
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Wheel Locks
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The player must locate, attach, and turn a wheel lock for multiple activities.
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Power Cells
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The player must locate a Power Cell, and insert it at a Power Cell Tower.
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Explosive Pipe
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Introduced in the final Boss fight, shooting an explosive pipe causes it to explode after a short delay. Shooting it after it's already been shot reduces the delay before it explodes.
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Cargo Containers
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There are multiple openable Cargo Containers throughout the game - some containing valuable resources, other containing Facehuggers.
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Fortification
I developed and polished the Shutters, which influence the spawning and movement of Xenomorphs. Shutters allow players to strengthen a location just before a holdout encounter. The greater the fortification of a space, the more staggered the Xenomorphs will be as they enter, giving the players an edge.
Full Level Playthroughs
The following videos are full playthroughs of the levels I owned as a Technical Designer.
I was in charge of the overall level scripting, cinematics implementation, dialogue implementation, and combat and level pacing.