'IRONSKINS' (pending release) is a turn-based tactical game that blends RPG elements with a dynamic narrative, where player decisions reshape the story. The plot centers on a European squad of pilots operating mechs called ironskins as they hunt down the Crimson Brigade, a mercenary group secretly fueling a civil war in Cyprus.

I started working on this project in February 2023, right after joining Aheartfulofgames S.L.
To my surprise, Ironskins was already complete and fully functional. However, management had discovered two critical issues too late: the mechanics were hard to understand, and the gameplay felt long and tedious.

I was hired to join the small team leading a full mechanical overhaul of the game. We redesigned almost everything from scratch, making sure to preserve and strengthen what already worked.

It was a massive challenge, since my tasks covered design areas I was less familiar with, such as weapon balancing and economy design. The biggest challenge was polishing every level, which involved:

• Correcting and refining dialogue and camera positions.
• Verifying that all narrative triggers fired correctly.
• Balancing difficulty by adjusting weapons and repositioning elements in each level.
• Introducing music changes and events at key narrative moments.
• Reviewing and improving level design through carefully calculated tweaks to optimize the player experience.

The player can recruit new pilots for their squadron depending
on the decisions they make during the game.

My first task was balancing the game's entire arsenal. I began by studying each variable and how they interacted during gameplay. The weapons were split into two categories—ranged and melee—whose lethality fluctuated based on the pilot's stats. Ranged weapons consumed targeting points to fire, generated heat, and lost targeting points due to recoil. Some could also be fitted with AI modules that enhanced pilot stats or came in ballistic, electromagnetic, or fusion variants.

The sheer number of parameters was a bit overwhelming, but I managed to balance these variables without diluting each weapon's thematic identity, while ensuring a clear progression: as players advanced, they acquired increasingly powerful weapons to face more lethal enemies.

Later, I took responsibility for balancing the artillery—grenades and missiles—the support systems (rapid cooling, enhanced mobility, extra targeting points, and emergency flares)—and all other components that let players customize their squad's Ironskins.

To carry out the balancing of ironskin parts it was necessary to organize everything in spreadsheets.
In this way it was easier to modify the variables.

'IRONSKINS' explores the scars that war leaves on those who fight it. To reflect the impact of trauma on pilots during combat, the game initially included a “stress” mechanic: taking damage or losing Ironskin components would build stress in the pilot. When certain thresholds were exceeded, character-unique effects triggered—perhaps one pilot would panic and retreat, while other would stay calm and shoot more accurately.

Although this mechanic was unique and engaging, it was almost cut due to time constraints during the overhaul. Implementing specific "stress-out" behaviours for each of the characters in the game would take many weeks of work and iteration, after all.

However, I took charge of redesigning it to fit the game's new vision. My proposal involved:

• Defining a limited set of "stress effects" (for example, one stress effect restricts a pilot to a single action per turn, while another compels them to automatically fire at any enemy within their attack range).
• Allowing combinations of these "stress effects" to generate "stress-out behaviours". Unlike the original proposal, different characters can share the same “stress-out behaviours" .
• Keeping implementation simple. The coding team only needed to prepare the initial "stress effects", as any designer could easily implement the "stress-out behaviours" on their own.

Thanks to this design, the coding team integrated it in under a week. I then “translated” the pre-overhaul system into the new framework, ensuring we retained the stress mechanic without compromising the development schedule.