Gameplay Designer Test

01

POCKET
MOCS

Deployable MOCs (My Own Creations) on the Skill Bar

  • Build your own items out of bricks.
  • Shrink them down to pocket size.
  • Deploy them seamlessly in gameplay.
  • Share them with friends or family.
Ages 6–12 + parents Epic Games × LEGO
Anthony Ordon Lead Gameplay Designer anthony.ordon@gmail.com 425-879-1771
Contents
Mechanic Design
02
Live Content Application
06
Engineering Handoff
08
Child silhouette holding up a brick rocket MOC Pocket MOCs Anthony Ordon Sheet 01 / 09

1. Mechanic Design · Concept

02

Concept

MOC is an acronym for My Own Creation, referring to custom builds that LEGO enthusiasts design from scratch using existing sets. A MOC's function incorporates existing game bricks such as wheels, hinges, launchers, and switches.

By letting players “pocket” their creations, this build mechanic fulfills a “Master Builder” fantasy depicted in LEGO media where characters build rapidly to overcome real-time encounters and dilemmas.

Before You Begin · Assumptions

  • A LEGO action-adventure game similar to LEGO Odyssey with an existing free-form brick building system (including snap guides, grid placement, and a light resource economy). Built in Unreal Engine.
  • Items are produced at player deployed crafting stations and activated from a constrained skill bar.
  • Multiplayer worlds are invite-only. Anyone in your world is someone you brought there, like a friend or a parent.
  • Player character systems include stamina and standard status states (stunned, exhausted).
Pocketizer Platform station with a build volume of studs and a partial MOC under construction
FIG. 1 Design and build within the constraints of the Pocketizer Platform, which converts builds into usable inventory items.
Pocket-sized rocket Pocket MOC held out, deploying into a full-scale rocket in the world
FIG. 2 Use the item to deploy the pocketized build seamlessly, without engaging the build system in moment-to-moment gameplay.
1. Mechanic Design Anthony Ordon Sheet 02 / 09

1. Mechanic Design · Core Loop

03

FIG. 3 · Core loop

1

Design Loop: Pocketizer Platform Station

Figure 3a, the design loop: Build with the normal system, Save to shrink into a Pocket MOC on the skill bar, and insert a saved Pocket MOC back into the station to remix it. Build Save POCKET normal system shrinks to item skill bar thumbnail icon Insert a saved Pocket to remix it

At a special crafting station, the player designs their item with the game's normal building system: same bricks, same snap guides, nothing new to learn. Saving the finished build shrinks it into a “Pocket MOC”, an inventory/skill bar item. The icon is a thumbnail of the build itself.

2

Deploy Loop: Moment-to-Moment Gameplay

Figure 3b, the deploy loop: Equip the Pocket, Place with a holographic footprint, Assemble at full size, and repeat while charges remain. Equip Place Assemble hold miniature holo footprint full size Repeat while charges remain

Equip the Pocket MOC. In hand, the character holds a miniature of the actual creation. A holographic placement footprint appears. Find a valid spot, confirm, and watch the Pocket MOC reassemble at full size.

Bonus · Remix Loop

Insert an existing Pocket back into the station to load it for changes.

1. Mechanic Design Anthony Ordon Sheet 03 / 09

1. Mechanic Design · Design Goals

04
1

Constraint over Complexity

  • Any six-year-old who understands the build system can use the Pocketizer Platform to make their own items.
  • No new building grammar except for a modest size limitation.
  • All constraints and functions are readable without text.
2

Seamless Deployment

  • Removes the friction of free-form building when a situation is already happening.
  • Players are still invited to design and build carefully ahead of time.
  • Use (and show off) toys and designs in gameplay without developing the tactile skills to manipulate build menus rapidly.
3

Intimate Sharing

  • Share by handing Pocket MOCs over or leaving them in a chest.
  • Remix by loading a MOC back into the Pocketizer Platform.
  • Invite-only worlds let sharing live inside real relationships. Parents can lend a hand, or maybe learn a thing or two.
1. Mechanic Design Anthony Ordon Sheet 04 / 09

1. Mechanic Design · Tuning Variables

05
Variable
Tuned up
Tuned down
Channel time & stamina cost Starting value: 2–3 s · 50–60% stamina per brick / deploy
Deploying complex creations feels deliberate and costly. Players think before bringing out big solutions.
Even large Pocket MOCs feel responsive. The system leans toward fluid, frequent use.
Platform design & volume size Starting value: 10 × 10 × 30 studs W × D × H
More ambitious, more powerful modules. Expression increases along with world complexity.
Creations stay simple, readable, and toy-like.
Pocketizer Platform material Starting value: power cell rarity / cost to create a Pocket MOC
Each Pocket MOC feels earned. A rare material gently pressures players against turning creation into the whole game.
Mass production is easy; the loop risks crowding out other play.
Charges per Pocket MOC Starting value: 3 Replenished at a Pocketizer Platform for material cost
Pocket MOCs feel like durable personal tools.
Every deployment is an event, and economy pressure rises.
1. Mechanic Design Anthony Ordon Sheet 05 / 09

2. Live Content Application · Player Experience

06

Event framing: on login

Silhouette of the tinkerer minifigure, hammer and wrench in hand

"I've got too many ideas and not nearly enough hands to finish them. Classic WIP disease, heh. I need real builder talent to demonstrate the potential of the Pocketizer Platform. Come finish something with me, take it into the field, and show me how it holds up!"

Week 6, DAUs flat.
A Mysterious Visitor Has a New Way to Build.

A cheerful tinkerer shows up in the player's village. He has the traditional ! bang of an NPC who has something to tell you.

Assumptions

  • Flat DAU in week 6 likely means a stable core with no inflow; actives are settled into routine and lapsed players aren't looking back.
  • Design's role in this situation is to create two hooks: a return-worthy gameplay experience and a daily return loop. The reactivation trigger that reaches lapsed players is outside our scope.

FIG. 4 · Reward pacing, one 20-minute session

Figure 4: a twenty-minute session as a timeline. Hook from zero to three minutes, build to nine, field test to sixteen, an unadvertised gift at sixteen to eighteen, and a hook for tomorrow at the close. Hook Build Field test Gift / Surprise! Tomorrow 0 3 9 16 18 20 min
0–3 Hook. Meet the tinkerer. First reward: the Pocketizer Platform recipe.
3–9 Build. Finish today's partial design at the station. Get your first Pocket MOC.
9–16 Field test. Deploy against any enemy roller. No fail state (the result itself teaches).
16–20 Gift, then tomorrow. "I've got an even bigger challenge for you tomorrow."

The surprise, at about 17 minutes

The tinkerer pops in out of nowhere, delighted. He gifts the player one of his own finished Pocket MOCs, boxed and ready in the inventory. It is unadvertised, it is personal recognition delivered in-fiction, and it diegetically teaches Pocket MOC sharing in the same beat.

The tinkerer's own finished Pocket MOC — a brick rocket, tied with a bow

"Nice parts usage! That's further than I ever got!"

2. Live Content Application Anthony Ordon Sheet 06 / 09

2. Live Content Application · Measure & Calendar

07

A soft launch dressed as a visit.

Shipping a new mechanic as a limited-time event is a classic Epic move; we'll use it to gather data and determine what should graduate to the game's core.

One success metric: reactivation quality

Among players lapsed 14+ days who log in during the event, the percentage who complete the full loop (finish a design and deploy it) within their first session.

Target: at least 2× the baseline rate at which lapsed returners engage with any new content system in a first session.

This isolates what design controls.

Event calendar · the tinkerer's half-finished designs

Each day of the event drops one of the tinkerer's unfinished builds at the station. Complexity steps up with each day. The player finishes today's WIP, field-tests it, and comes back for the next.

Day 1
Brick Wall

Static cover, teaches basics of Pocket MOCs with zero moving parts.

Day 2
Lift

Vertical mover based on balloon or rocket dynamics.

Day 3
Trap

Pressure plate activated hazard volume.

Day 4
Turret

Emplacement with aimable cannon.

Day 5
Vehicle

Wheels, body, and power core.

Soft Launch: Knowledge Generation Opportunities

Purpose vs. showpiece Do players build for a deployable purpose, or finish showpieces that never leave the station?
Deploy rate What share of finished Pocket MOCs are field-tested in the same session they were saved?
Return pull Does “bigger challenge tomorrow” actually pull a second session within 48 hours?
Share uptake Does the gifted Pocket MOC teach sharing inside invite-only worlds, or stay solo inventory clutter?
Loadout size How many Pocket MOCs does a typical player carry, and does slot count drive that ceiling?
Calendar stamina Which half-finished designs still convert late in the event vs. drop off after Day 1–2?
2. Live Content Application Anthony Ordon Sheet 07 / 09

3. Engineering Handoff · Activation & Ability Flow

08

Activation conditions

  • Pocket MOC is equipped on the skill bar; the character renders the held miniature, generated from the serialized build.
  • Player is not exhausted, stunned, or dead.
  • Placement preview shows a valid, clear footprint within maximum range. If blocked or out of range the ability cannot start, and the player receives a clear error state.
  • On confirmation, the channel begins.

Ability flow: what fires, in what order

Physics assumptions (Geometry Collection levels, world-supported, debris) are based on Michael Lentine, Chaos Physics in LEGO Fortnite, GDC 2024.

  1. Confirm placement. Design intent: a protected volume at the target (no other players enter; structure cannot take damage while assembling). Design assumes existing build-protection patterns already cover this.
  2. Channel starts. The player can move slowly. A visual link connects the player to the build site.
  3. Assembly over time using a Geometry Collection Level-0 (intact) representation. Piece count drives both channel duration and stamina cost. If stamina hits zero the ability still completes; the player enters the normal exhaustion state afterward.
  4. Interrupt cases (player leaves range, is stunned, or cancels). Already-progressed resolve into normal client-only debris via existing destruction rules (no material refunds or loot). Perfect accuracy on partial progress is not required.
  5. Successful completion. Spawn the serialized brick layout as a Geometry Collection at Level-0 (intact). Spawn kinematic long enough for the physics engine to resolve overlaps, then switch to dynamic, or mark world-supported (anchored / not simulating) when grounded. One charge is deducted.

FIG. 5 · Firing order & interrupt branch

Figure 5: ability flow steps 1–5. Interrupt (4) branches from Channel (2); happy path continues to Assemble (3) and Complete (5). 1 2 3 5 4 Confirm Channel Assemble Complete Interrupt valid · protect volume slow move, stamina GC level-0, over time −1 charge client-only debris
3. Engineering Handoff Anthony Ordon Sheet 08 / 09

3. Engineering Handoff · Data Model & Risk

09

Data model

  • A Pocket MOC is a serialized snapshot of the exact brick layout and materials, with a charge count (target: 3).
  • Remixing is implemented as loading. Inserting a Pocket MOC into a Pocketizer Platform deserializes it into the editable station volume; saving writes a new Pocket MOC.
  • Depleted Pocket MOCs can be discarded, or replenished at a Pocketizer Platform by re-paying the material cost.
  • If future brick-data updates invalidate a Pocket MOC, handle it the same way the game already handles world builds that become invalid.

Stretch · Provenance chain & naming

Ordered list of creator IDs, appended each time a Pocket MOC is remixed and re-saved, plus a player-facing name that can credit the chain. Example: “Rocket built by Dad. Remixed by Penny.” Nice for credit and social discovery; not required to ship the mechanic.

One pitfall: flagged to engineering

Mid-channel multiplayer consistency and authority.

While a Pocket MOC is assembling over time, we need a deterministic ownership and replication strategy so all clients stay in sync and interrupt/destruction behavior resolves identically on server and clients. Because pieces appear progressively and the channel can be interrupted, this is the highest-risk implementation detail in the feature. Break and damage authority should stay server-side; clients can show assembly VFX. On interrupt, only the server decides what happens to the assembling structure; the client must not independently resolve and then correct.

Design expectation: the assembling structure is fully protected and owned by the activating player until the channel succeeds or fails cleanly. If that guarantee is expensive, tell me early (I would rather cut channel length or interruptibility than ship a desyncing collision bug).

NEW

Engineering task worth scoping early

Thumbnail and held-miniature generation from arbitrary serialized builds: render-to-texture for the inventory icon, and a scaled LOD render for the in-hand model. Nothing else in the feature (besides the Pocketizer Platform and Tinkerer) depends on art authoring, so this seemed like a potentially new pipeline.

3. Engineering Handoff Anthony Ordon Sheet 09 / 09