For the image shown above, I took a marketing image and created a logo for the event to help convey the idea during pitch sessions. In the logo, I made the neon light shape around the word 'Cipher' a key and within it the actual cipher 'key' itself that player's will need to use to solve the code later on in the event.
I was the Project Lead and Design Lead for the Cipher event in Fortnite that released in March 2023. I managed a team of cross-discipline developers and designed, pitched, directed, and implemented the set of content for the Cipher event.
For the Cipher event, I created a 'cipher' code that users would have to decode or go online to look at influencers to find the answers. I built the cipher itself into the UI designs I made so that players had the answer hidden in plain sight right in front of them. To facilitate the design, I had to train the localization, social, marketing, publishing, and art teams on how to use and create their own cipher codes so the UI, quests, gameplay environment, and social media posts would all work in tandem and follow a consistent design.
The above screenshots show users solving the cipher codes I designed and discovering secrets such as spectrograms hidden in the audio files. The secrets all teased upcoming unreleased content, which generated a lot of press and social engagement during the course of the event.
This image is one of the tutorial files I created to train cross-teams on how to create the cipher code consistently.
The above image is one of the UI mockups I created to show how the codes would function in the UI and how the cipher key would be hidden in the right side of the screen for users to be able to find and return back to in the FE and in-game menus.
The streamer video shown above is an example of some of the cross-team coordination that I managed to get the event content in-game. The designs brought to life: The artists made bespoke props for the quest content I created, Audio team made sfx for when my in-game hooks were completed, the Narrative Team added text that teased upcoming content, Tech artists hid a spectrogram in the audio file for players to find, Level Design created the underground lab, and I implemented the quest functionality as well. Pitching and directing the Cipher event was a real blast and I'd like to thank everyone involved for helping make this event possible.
