Purgatory (2024) & Purgatory: Chaos Expansion (2025)

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Hi-Concept: Fight your way through the rings of Purgatory towards the Winner’s Circle as The Hellish Demon Abaddon, The Fallen Angel Azrael, The Three-Headed Beast Cerberus, or The Monstrous Devastator!

Team Type: College Team Project

Team Size: 8 People

Software I Used: Milanote, Google Workstation, Discord, TheGameCrafter

My Role(s): Project Lead, Game Designer

My Main Responsibilities:

  • Led the development of a complete original board game and its expansion pack, with both being designed as thematic companions to the “Edge of Hell” video game.

  • Oversaw production organization, creative direction, and cross-team communication across multiple interdependent projects under shared timelines and resource constraints.

  • Served as Principal Game Designer of the expansion pack content.

  • Designed a new deck of mechanically complex “Item Cards” with the purpose of enhancing the original title’s combat system through strategy and resource management.

  • Balanced all expansion mechanics and ensured cohesive integration with the base game via careful systems design and playtesting.

  • Authored the full rulebooks for both the original game and its expansion.

The Rulebook

The Board & Pieces

The Purgatory board game’s actual board started off as several prototypes made of cardstock. The tiles were drawn on with marker as we decided how many of each different type of tile should be present on the board and in which order for proper balance. Eventually, the artists designed the board shown in the upper right, which was drawn to represent the same three levels of Purgatory found in the Edge of Hell game. The game’s board design was then finalized and assembled in Photoshop with all the final art assets. Shown below is the final version of the entire Purgatory: Chaos Expansion version of the game. The package included x1 Game Box (not shown), x1 Printed Rulebook, x2 dice, x1 deck of Stat Cards, x4 Character Pawns, x1 deck of Sin Tokens, x1 deck of Soul Tokens, x1 deck of Item Cards, and x1 Game Board.

The “Chaos Expansion”

Shown below are some of the Chaos Expansion Pack’s “Item Cards”, which changed the flow of the game with their various effects, often scaling in power based on a color-rarity system. Under the banner of the single Item Card, there were two types (Type A & B) which indicated when they could be played. The colors correlate with how many of a given card exists in the deck as well as their general power level. I was responsible for designing nearly every single one of the Chaos Expansion Pack’s new Item Cards. I came up with the overarching item card system that influenced combat as well as normal gameplay, all the card effects listed below the illustrations, the color-rarity system influencing the cards’ strength and quantities available, and amended my rulebook from the base game to accommodate the expansion as well as improvements to its readability.

The original “Chaos Expansion” concept pitch to the team:

“In order to spice up the gameplay of Purgatory and make it more unpredictable and chaotic (pun intended), we’ve added new card types to make the gameplay, especially duels, more varied. The Chaos Version of the game allows the usage of these new cards as well as adding new mechanics such as the option to play Stat Cards defensively in a duel and using the Teleport Tile to challenge a Guardian for a price. We’ve also made sweeping balancing changes to the original game by reducing the number of sins required to move between rings, changing the balance of Guardian Duels, changing the steps of Duels to make them smoother and easier to understand, rephrasing of rules for more clarity, and more.”