Nikki Ashaka
Game Designer Specializing in Combat and Systems Designs|Spider Man 2|USC Interactive Media & Game Design MFA Alumni
ABOUT ME
I'm Nikki Ashaka, a Game Designer with experience in both AAA and Indie development. I've got a experience with both creative and technical elements. I attended USC for my masters of Interactive Media and Game Design and Kennesaw State University for a BS in Computer Game Design & Development with a minor in Computer Science.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 | Insomniac Games
Role: Game Design Intern – Combat & Mission Scripting
Platform: PlayStation 5
I had the incredible opportunity to work on Marvel's Spider-Man 2, focusing on the dynamic crime missions that make NYC feel alive. My main goal was to ensure these random encounters were not only fun and challenging but also perfectly polished because even a small bug can break the magic of being Spider-Man.
The Challenge
The open-world crime system is designed to spawn encounters anywhere in the city. The big challenge was making these moments feel seamless. Early on, enemies would sometimes spawn inside walls or cars, which instantly broke immersion. We also needed to ensure these encounters felt unique, scaled correctly in difficulty, and provided the right level of challenge whether it was the player’s first hour or their 50th.
What I Did & How I Solved Problems
As a Combat Design Intern, I took ownership of scripting, tuning, and polishing a wide range of these missions. My work was a mix of creative design and technical problem-solving.
Fixing Spawn Logic & Validation: I conducted a meticulous, area-by-area audit of spawn points across the entire New York map. I established a validation checklist for what a "logical" spawn looked like and worked closely with my lead to use proprietary tools to adjust parameters directly in the engine.
Designing & Tuning Engaging Encounters: It wasn't just about fixing bugs. I placed enemies, vehicles, and interactive objects to create fun and strategic combat scenarios. I balanced enemy counts and pacing to make fights challenging without feeling overwhelming or cheap.
Progression Tracking & Documentation: I helped document the difficulty variables for different crime types, including the tougher symbiote encounters. This created a clear reference for the team to manage scaling and ensure a smooth, satisfying difficulty curve as players progressed.
Understanding the System: Crime Mission Logic
A big part of my role wasn't just placing enemies, but understanding how and why they spawned. I worked within this core logic flow to ensure every encounter felt intentional and performant.
This chart maps out the system I helped tune and debug:
My Role in This Flow: My main focus was deep within the "Spawn Point Logic" sub-process (highlighted in blue). My task was to ensure that the "Check Spawn Point Validity" step was robust.
My Role in This Flow: My main focus was deep within the "Spawn Point Logic" sub-process (highlighted in blue). My task was to ensure that the "Check Spawn Point Validity" step was robust.
Ensuring Validity: I defined what a "valid" point meant through practical testing: it had to be a navigable mesh (not inside geometry), have enough space for the enemy to appear, and be outside the player's immediate field of view to maintain immersion.
Balancing the Load: The flow starts by loading appropriate enemy groups. I worked with this system to help balance how many enemies of which type were allocated to different crime difficulties, ensuring we didn't overload the scene.
Conclusion
The crime missions I worked on shipped in a polished and balanced state, contributing to the open-world experience that players and critics loved. It was incredibly rewarding to see my work—fixing what could have been frustrating glitches—become a seamless part of the adventure. This internship gave me deep, hands-on experience in AAA combat design pipelines and taught me how to effectively collaborate to solve complex, systemic problems.