Adrian Ledda

+ Intro

As of early 2017, more than 300,000,000 Skylanders toys have been sold. As a character designer, this is an immense honor and privilege to bring the joy of games and toys to adults and kids alike.

The core of Skylanders is the magic of bringing toys to life. Each Skylander has a very real physical presence as an interesting toy, and upon placing them on the portal, they come to life in the video game as a hero that the player can control. The commercial to the right exemplifies the user experience. 

I have worked on the design, prototyping, scripting, and release of 21 current Skylanders. We strive to make each Skylander feel unique and engaging, all the while having fun attacks that are easy to learn, but challenging to master. Our target audience is children, so our design focuses on simplicity, immediacy, diversity, and a certain level of playful immaturity. Here is a selection of the Skylanders I worked on.

+ Pain-yatta

A living pinata creature wielding a variety of lollipop weapons and projectile candy barf, Pain-yatta was always a personal favorite of mine - and the fans! In game, he attacks with his lollipop, which with enough hits, eventually breaks to create a spectacular attack - which really is a melee-type character with an ammo mechanic. 

+ Tri-Tip

The first Sensei Skylander for Imaginators in the development process! Tri-Tip had the distinction of setting the precedent for what all other Senseis would need to feel like - strong, masterful, powerful, and whimsical. Tri-Tip does this by performing mace combo attacks, charging with his horns, and of course, summoning dino fossils to trap his foes. Watch out for the random asteroid that comes to his aid, from time to time!

+ Tidepool

In Imaginators, Tidepool is only one of two Sensei characters that represent the Quickshot class. She wields dual squids that shoot out ink. Her design incorporates a more agile playstyle, while also using various other sea creatures like whales and starfish in her other attacks.

+ Air Strike

Air Strike and his feathered companion Birdie were an incredible challenge to design and implement. The player was essentially controlling two characters at once, which we presented as Air Strike doing coordinating martial art attacks with Birdie, and also being able to command Birdie to do a dive bomb attack fluidly. 

+ Buckshot

Buckshot was not terribly popular as a visual concept, but his design very quickly changed minds about that! As a magic goat creature, he can create and move through portals. With his bow, he can shoot through any portal, and the arrow would come conveniently out of some other portal and go straight for the enemy! Or perhaps even enter another portal, to enter another portal, to enter another portal ... THEN hit the enemy.

+ Gearshift

This character presented an auspicious opportunity to represent a strong female leader within a tech-centric theme. Her attacks were inspired from concepts central to programming and code - versatility, modal abilities, and a malleable weapon. Gearshift is able to mold her weapon into three different forms, each with their own degrees of situational effectiveness.

 + Jawbreaker

Devised as a mechanical character that uses overclocking, Jawbreaker is a close-combat specialist that can use the extra boost from overclocking for more powerful attacks and faster movement - at least temporarily. Players can learn to manage this overclock resource to either sustain small bursts of power intermittently or to unleash all the power at once in a single devastating attack.

+Deja Vu

One of the most complex and unusual Skylanders by far, Deja Vu utilizes space-time manipulation. Her attacks involve creating a past copy of herself that repeats actions the player performed in the past, as well as being able to swap positions with that past copy at any time. She can also create black holes that suck in enemies and affect the trajectory of her attacks.

+Blades
Dragons share a large degree of popularity in Skylanders, but Blades is strange in that they have a sword attached to their tail, and that Blades does not fly. Instead, this character is able to control wind speed and direction, utilizing the currents to move shrapnel around the battlefield. 

+Fist Bump
I experienced my first earthquake while working on Skylanders, and I was inspired to make a kid-friendly character that expressed that kind of power. Fist Bump is an unreasonably angry rock panda that is able to create fault lines along the ground, which erupt spikes, rocks, and healing bamboo whenever the ground is smashed.  

+ Wrecking Ball

An uncomfortably adorable grub-like character, Wrecking Ball is a highly defensive and relatively difficult to control character. With a tongue attack and burp attack, Wrecking Ball has reliable straight-shot capabilities. The shield roll allows them to become protected, but at the cost of moving like a pinball through the environment. And of course, the shield ball can be upgraded to have disco ball power.

+ Chill

A valkyrie of sorts, Chill is a ranged, defensive character. She can summon ice walls, which can be pushed around and used as defensive barriers. She throws javelins, which can go through ice walls for interesting effects. Later upgrades involve her summoning a narwhal and orca whales because why not.

+ Terrafin

A fan favorite, Terrafin is a boxer-like shark (who never bites) with very good close range abilities. He can burrow underground and emerge with a powerful bellyflop attack, making him an excellent choice for charging safely into crowds of enemies and wrecking havoc.  Advanced upgrades include spiked knuckles, improved bellyflopping, and summoning baby sharks.

+ Sprocket

A wonderfully intellectual builder of sorts, Sprocket uses her know-how to build automated turrets and powerful tanks. And if enemies get too close, she can always rely on her wrench attacks and mines. Her attacks do require a decent startup time, but become very effective in setups involving outlasting the enemy.

+ Prism Break

Definitely falling into the "easy to use, difficult to master" category, Prism Break conjures up crystal shards, which he can shoot beams with to refract the beams further. Definitely one of the more interesting things to have to script.

+ Sonic Boom

Designed as a mix between a mid-range character and a "pet class" archetype, Sonic Boom has a basic roar attack coupled with the ability to throw baby gryphon eggs that hatch into autonomous gryphon baby birds. Basic strategies involve using the roar attack while distracting enemies with the babies, but advanced upgrades allow echolation attacks, synergy with roaring at your babies, flight, and more effective babies.

+ Ghost Roaster

One of the more ghastly Skylanders, Ghost Roaster is a mobile melee character that makes use of a chain whip tail and transforming into a skull to charge forward. He also has a unique ability to become completely invulnerable to all attacks, at the cost of moving slowly and losing health over time. His moveset makes for one of the best hit-and-run strategies.

+ Camo

A curious plant dragon, Camo uses various greenery for their attacks, including watermelon and of course dragonfruit. A ranged-focused character that can shoot sun balls straight forward and in a shield pattern, Camo's plants attacks offered powerful, but delayed spike damage.

+ Eye-Brawl

A strange mix of a living armor and a winged cyclops eye, Eye-Brawl focuses on heavy melee punch attacks and combos, but also has the ability to detach the eye from his body, increasing mobility and adding an ability to fire eye lasers. While the eye is detached, the living armor body flails around also attacking enemies randomly. He can also summon mini bouncing eyes that autonomously annoy the enemy.