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.

Game Design: The Rulebook

Game Design: The Board & Pieces

Game Design: The “Chaos Expansion” Pack

Shown above 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 of the frames correlate with how many of a given card exists in the deck, with blue being x4, purple being x2, and orange being x1. Only one Item Card may be used per duel per player. 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.

My initial elevator pitch to the team for my “Chaos Expansion” idea was as follows:

“Concept Pitch: 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.”