- Gameplay & Mission Designer
Narrative Systems & Worldbuilding
Design-leaning Producer & Coordinator
Narrative Systems & Worldbuilding
Design-leaning Producer & Coordinator
M.F.A in Game and Interactive Media
2022 - 2025
New York University
B.S. in Interactive Media Arts,
Minor in Creative Writing
2017 – 2021
Banana Republic
Present
Lead Narrative Designer
Desol
Present
Creative Director
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How to Pet Your Cat
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2022 - 2023
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2021 - 2022
UIUX Student Designer
Alipay (Shanghai)
2021
User Research Intern
Microsoft (Chengdu)
2020
Manager Assistant Intern
Microsoft Professional Program
2018
Game Development Principle, Tabletop RPG, Game System Design
USC Games
2023-2025
Information Assistant
NYU Academic Resource Center
2018
2025
MUSE Creative Awards Silver Winner 2024
GDC 2025,
Day of the Devs 2025,
IGN Live 2025,
CatCon 2025,
USC Games Expo (2023, 2025)
Last Updated 25.11.05
Desol
Lead Narrative Designer, Mission DesignerDesol is a Unity 3D semi open world survival exploration game where players are reborn again and again into a brutal fantasy desert. With limited water and fragile time, they follow scattered clues toward a mythic Sea that may end the cycle.
Info
- Duration: May 2025 - Present
- Genre: Open World, Exploration, Survival
- Engine: Unity 3D
- Length：45 minutes (in development)
- Team Size: ~30
- Role: Lead Narrative Designer, Quest Designer
Worldbuilding and Narrative Systems
Owned world lore and the player journey, defined a node based narrative system for events and clue delivery, and established writing style guides to maintain consistent tone and thematic cohesion.
Open World Structure and Regional Design
Built the full world map and regional identities, and designed traversal and progression logic including terrain difficulty tiers and tags, landmark language, resource distribution, and a multi path information puzzle guiding players toward the Sea.
Narrative and Mechanic Integration
Designed NPC encounter frameworks and environmental storytelling nodes, and collaborated with mechanics and level design to integrate narrative intent into traversal, survival pressure, and achievement driven progression.
Cross Disciplinary Direction
Aligned art, level design, and narrative around a unified symbolic visual language, and produced clear documentation and placement rules to support consistent implementation across the team.
Worldbuilding & Map Design
Node-Based Narrative System
Vertical Slice Map
NPC & Collectible Dialogue Document
© 2026 Rosie Gao. All rights reserved.