Madelyn Rae Veccia
Game and Interactive Media Designer and Writer
Memoirscape
Memoirscape is a cozy, untimed, immersive experience that asks guests to become participants in the first live demonstration of Dr. Julia Adler’s work on interactive memories—reconstructing, for this first test, Dr. Adler’s own happy memory of the summer of 1986 in her grandmother’s apartment, the last she spent there before heading off to college.This project was an IndieCade Festival 2024 nominated game (October 17, 2024). I worked on the narrative team to develop the story for this interactive experience, pulling from my own experiences as a queer woman to create an authentic story.
Construction Dysfunction is a co-operative LEGO building game where one player, the Architect, has access to the instructions and the other, the Builder, has access to the LEGO pieces. Neither player can see the other's materials so they must communicate and work together to complete the build. This task is made all the more difficult by the puzzles the two players must solve in order to uncover the instructions they need.
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Planet Hopper TTRPG Demo
A character based TTRPG set in a unique fantasy-space setting. Demo includes description of the setting and detailed character builders for 2 character classes.
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The Heisters Card Game
The Heisters is an exciting co-operative card game about reacting to the twists and turns of a daring heist. This game was developed by myself and 2 others as a part of a design sprint with the goal to create a card game over a rapid 4 week period.
Capacity Building Guide
The Capacity Building Guide website was developed by a small team to teach users about the concepts of capacity building. I was the graphic design lead and an interaction designer for this project and worked to create an smooth user experience.
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Home for the Holidays Escape Room
Home for the Holidays was an escape room created by a team of 20 WPI graduate and undergraduate students. I was the narrative chair of this project managing a team of 5 other writers and interfacing with other teams. The escape room ran for one week servicing more than 140 individual players.
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Free Body Diagram App
The Free Body Diagram App is a game that teaches physics students about the math behind free body diagrams. I worked as a game designer and playtester for this project.
Explorer Journals
Stylized creative writing work highlighting storytelling and how it intersects with game design. This project showcases writing, graphic design, and game design.
Madelyn Rae Veccia
Education
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Interactive Media and Game Design Bachelor of Arts Degree
Graduated May 2024Currently Perusing Masters of Fine Arts in Interactive Media and Game Design
Graduating May 2026
Skills
Interactive Media DesignLeadershipCollaborationWriting for GamesGraphic Design
Game Design in:
- Escape Rooms
- Card Games
- Mobile Games
- Simulation Games
- Table Top Games
- Computer Games
- Game Shows
- Interactive Experiences
- Augmented Reality
About Me
My name is Madelyn "Maddie" Rae Veccia. I use She/Her/Hers pronouns and I love making narrative focused interactive experiences! I graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in May 2024 with a Bachelors of Arts in Interactive Media and Game Design. I am currently perusing my Masters of Fine arts in Interactive Media and Game design still at WPI (graduating May 2026). While at WPI I earned the IMGD community Award in 2023 for the active roll I take in the IMGD community. I also earned the IMGD Outstanding Innovation Award as a part of my Major Qualifying Project team in 2024.Aside from all of that, I am a proud trans woman who deeply believes in the power that comes from community and mutual support. I feel very lucky to have friends and a community that supports my authentic self and lifts me up to be the best version of myself every day. I also enjoy baking, writing, and playing tabletop games with my friends!
What is Memoirscape?
Memoirscape is an interactive immersive experience diving into the memories of Dr. Julia Adler. The game takes place in a space designed to mimic an appartment in Queens, NYC, in 1986 that encourages you to enjoy the time in this space. Through exploring the space you can begin to unravel the childhood Dr. Adler is trying to relive.I was a part of the narrative team for this project, mainly developing the story of Dr. Adler's childhood along with my partner Marisa Higgins (also on the writing team). We wrote dialogue that was then performed and recorded for those experiencing the room to find on tape recorders. I also acted as Dr. Julia Adler during the run of the room performing live for those exploring the space as the absentminded professor.Memoirscape was an IndieCade Festival 2024 nominated game after it's run earlier that year.
Step into the recreated haven of a Queens, NYC, apartment circa 1986. Indulge in the warmth of nostalgia as you experience—or explore—a slice of time from Dr. Julia Adler’s childhood, long before she became a professor or started experimenting with memory technology. Come back to when everything was beautiful and perfect. Because it was perfect. It really was.There’s no rush to escape here. Instead, you can immerse yourself in the space, let your curiosity guide you, and notice the narrative unfold. Allow yourself to relax, to play around, to savor. Through this gentle exploration, you can let Dr. Adler’s narrative reveal itself to you, layer by layer.Go back to an era of endless Snake games and Rubik’s cubes and comic books. Remember how it felt to be happy, to be nothing but happy? Julie’s exhibit eagerly awaits your exploration.
Archived Website
The archived Memoirscape website can be accessed for additional information.
What is Construction Dysfunction?
Construction Dysfunction is a cooperative LEGO building game made by Marisa Higgins and Madelyn Veccia. In the game, two players work together to build a LEGO set. The first player takes the role of Architect. The Architect has access to the instruction booklet and is tasked with communicating the instructions to the other player. However, this is no easy task as most of the instructions are hidden behind complex puzzles they must work together with the other player to solve. The second player takes the role of Builder. The Builder has access to the LEGO pieces and is tasked with following the Architect’s instructions and building the set. Additionally, they have a booklet of their own which contains integral parts of the puzzles they are working with the Architect to solve. Neither player can see the materials the other has access to, so they must work together to build the LEGO set through communication and collaborative puzzle solving.
Demo Documents
You can download and play the game here! The demo includes a full version of the game, design documentation, as well as a generator to automatically create
What is Planet Hopper?
Planet Hopper is a narrative driven tabletop role-playing game set in a fantastical setting across multiple planets in a unique star system. The demo features unique mechanics that help players track their character's change over the course of the story. A full breakdown of the demo and how it could be used in conjunction with other tabletop role-playing games can be found in the demo document, accessible below.
Planet Hopper is a solo project I undertook in the fall of 2024. This project was driven by my love of space and tabletop role-playing games. While this project is very special to me, it taught me a lot about the scope of tabletop games and how I work creatively outside of a development team. The ideas behind this game are still very exciting to me and something I hope I can return to in time.
What is the Heisters?
The Heisters is a game of rolling dice, drawing cards, and making decisions in order to pull off heist at a world famous casino. The goal of the game is for you and your team of skilled heisters to steal enough treasure for you all to live the lavish lives of your dreams. You can't do that though if you get caught. Keep your Stealth and Security values high in order to remain safe and get out with your prize.
Card Visuals
Design Iterations
This game was developed by myself and 2 others as a part of a design sprint with the goal to create a card or board game over a rapid 4 week period. Over the course of those 4 weeks, our team cycled design, playtesting, and analysis to create the best version of our shared vision for the game. In the end the final product was a fun co-operative card game that replicated the exciting highs and lows of a heist movie.While our team was proud of this version of the project, there was still plenty of design concepts and ideas we left unimplemented due to time constraints. Luckily, I was able to continue this project individually. I designed visuals for the cards from the original game (as seen to the left) as well as new card types and mechanics that added an interesting expansion to our original game.
Rules Sheet Final Version
Version 1
Version 2
Rules Sheet Final Version
Capacity Building Project Summary
The Capacity Building Guide was a project I undertook over a two month period on a small team. We were tasked with translating a 40 page guide to the concept of capacity building to an easily approachable website that encourages users to learn at their own pace.The website can be accessed via the link below
Interaction Design
As one of the interaction designers on this project, one of my main goals was to obfuscate the sheer mass of material from our source material to hopefully create a less intimidating reading experience. This can be seen clearly in our expandable main page (shown in images below). This page, at first, is simple and approachable. However, it can expand to show every section and subsection of the capacity building guide. This allowed our users to slowly embark on the task of learning capacity building without overwhelming them with information.
In addition to these obfuscation tactics, our team worked to create accessibility tools for the site to further bolster the interactive experiance. As a neurodivergent person, this aspect of the site was very important to me and I worked to ensure that we could provide options to make this site comprehensible to as wide an audience as possible.
Graphic Design
I was the graphic design lead on this project. I developed the color and design pallets we used throughout the entire website. We used the program Figma to demo these design concepts and communicate them to the implementation team.The design of this website was created to be fun and inviting to those navitating it and learning capacity building. I took these ideas to heart when designing the various web pages and menus. This included using bright colors that would shift depending on which section of the guide you were in as well as soft shapes and colors to put the user at ease when reading. Example pages can be seen in the images below or by going to the capacity building website itself.
Home for the Holidays Escape Room
I was the writing lead for the Home for the Holidays escape room that ran for one week in late 2023. During that week, we saw over 140 people play the room and attempt an escape. The room was themed around a 1980s Christmas with a mysterious time loop and an enigmatic professor. The players had to unravel clues and puzzle in order to escape the room before the time loop ended.In my role as the narrative chair for this project I facilitated my team of 5 other writers. I interfaced with the other teams to integrate our story into the puzzles and visual design of the room. My team and I wrote scripts, trained student actors, and created a compelling narrative for this experiance.In addition to the role of narrative chair, I was on the team who's pitch was chosen for the "Home for the Holidays" concept. Our pitch is what grew into the final product of this escape room.Pictured below is the entire escape room team!
On the News
During the run of this escape room we were featured on both Spectrum News 1 and The Worcester Telegram and Gazette. The links to these articles can be viewed below (The Worcester Telegram and Gazette requires a subscription for viewing).
Large Project Team
As the narrative chair for this project I spent much of my time interacting with the other teams on this massive project. This experience was my first being a part of a team this large and taught me a lot about efficient and clear communication as well as standing my ground as an writer when others tried to step on my creativity. With this expeirence under my belt I feel I can be much more capable in a leadership role with this type of project.Below is a link to a full video of the escape room!
What is the Free Body Diagram App?
The Free Body Diagram App was a project I was apart of during the summer of 2023. I worked on a small team to renovate an app designed to teach college students about physics free body diagrams through interactive games. I was new to this project team at the time and the first version of the app had already been released and used by students. Our job was to clean up any bugs and overhaul some of the less intuitive games in the app. The app was developed on unity and playable on iOS for WPI students in the fall 2023 semester.
Playtesting and Designing
The Free Body Diagram app had 3 games included within it. Shown on the right is a level from one of those games. My work on this project began with heavy playtesting of the game. I was looking for bugs and aspects of the design that could be improved upon for the new version. I communicated this to the programmers and worked on the new design for one of the app's games, the tracing game. The game has, as the name implies, gameplay where you use your finger to trace specific areas of free body diagrams. Originally this game was difficult to control and would rarely recognize a correct tracing. I worked with the programmers to design and implement a new version of the tracing gameplay as one of my largest workloads on this project. Overall I gained real experience of what it is like to work in a small team on a project with a deadline.
Personal Project
The explorer journals started out as a class assignment for an undergraduate course focused on writing characters for games. We were tasked to tell the story of a character through the format of loose journal entries that could be found in any order. I decided to tell the story of an older woman surviving in a zombie apocalypse. The story isn't the reason this project stuck with me, its how I was able to tell that story. I put on a voice and performed it for some of my friends and really enjoyed it. That got me interested in more interactive narrative work and was the catalyst for me starting a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in April of 2023 that I still run to this day. Telling stories through interactive media is something that is very special to me and this project felt like the beginning of that journey for me.A full text version of the journals in order can be viewed at the bottom of this page.
Full Story
Journal Entry 1:
It’s been a week now in this old house. Gerald is a swine, but he wasn’t lying about this house, it is very defensible. I have plenty of space, fresh water nearby, and the forest is filled with game I’ve been using to sustain myself. No trouble from any infected so far, but I hear them shuffling around at night. I’m not too far from the settlement either if I need supplies. It’s very secluded here; I’ve only seen a few others around these parts. Most people are just passing by, on their way to some false hope of safety. There have been these kids I’ve seen more than once. The oldest among them couldn’t be more than sixteen years old, and they all look terrified. They’ve seen me a couple of times, but they’ve never come up to my house. I don’t want any trouble with them; as long as they keep their distance, I’ll keep mine.
Journal Entry 2:
The garden is doing better than I expected. Granted, it’s very small, but there isn’t much room on the roof. Wish I could expand it further around my homestead, but if the animals don’t destroy it, the infected surely will come nightfall. I don’t need much more than this though, it’s easier taking care of a smaller number of plants. If only I could get my hands on those pepper seeds, but Gerald is asking the most ridiculous prices for them. His shop in the settlement is the only place around here that’ll have them though. Hopefully I can find some on my own.
Journal Entry 3:
Those kids are back again. I haven’t seen them in a few days, but I noticed they were meandering around last night. It’s as if they don’t know those infected are more active at night. The kids look in worse shape than ever, and I think they have lost one of their number. I expected them to move on after a few days, maybe find a permanent stronghold, but they’re just wandering around like lost dogs. I feel sorry for them, but there’s nothing I can do. Letting them in here would put me at an extreme risk. I have to put them out of my mind, I’ve got to protect myself, nobody else.
Journal Entry 4:
I took a trip to the settlement today. It had grown since I left, they even have a leader now. Some John character is in charge, can’t remember his last name, like that really matters anymore. He spoke to me, but I didn’t give him the time of day. He wanted me to come back and help to grow the settlement further. I wasn’t hearing any of it; you ask me, that place is a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. While I was in town, I had planned to buy more seeds and other supplies off Gerald, but he hiked his prices as per usual. He knows he has the only good supply in the area, but he has no right to act so selfishly. He should give us all a fair price, we’re all in the same boat here, the least he could do is have some empathy.
Journal Entry 5:
Those kids shouldn’t be outside this late at night. They’re out on the edge of the forest, and its long past nightfall. I could have warned them, I suppose, when I saw them foraging earlier today, but I- (this entry abruptly ends).
Journal Entry 6:
I was hoping I could keep that shotgun unused till the day I die, but that didn’t happen. I had no choice; I saw those kids being attacked and had to do something. I got there in time to save four of them, but I had to put the last one down before he got worse. The look on his face was terrifying, but I did what I had to. I let them stay the night of course; I’m not sending them out now that the infected are swarming the area. I’m going to send them packing first thing in the morning though, no use in endangering myself more than I already am.
Journal Entry 7:
So, I let those kids stay a few days more. I couldn’t send them back out there; the way they were talking, it’s as if they didn’t know the first thing about surviving. They knew how to get by, barely, but they didn’t know how to live properly in times like these. Some of them told me they used to live in the settlement but were kicked out because they couldn’t provide anything. That’s exactly why I left that disgraceful place. They are only kids what were they supposed to do. I had to teach them a thing or two, just to keep them alive longer than a day. This one kid, her name was Sandra, took a real interest in my small garden. She is very kind, I told her that learning how to grow her own food is a useful skill in these times. Now this other one, Tommy, he acted like a rough and tough leader type, but I reckon he cares for the rest of them more than they realize. The twins on the other hand are funny. They managed to coax some laughs out of me, I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. It’s good that they have each other, it was nice having them around.
Journal Entry 8:
I haven’t written in this old book for a long time. I haven’t needed to, not since those damn kids came along and kept me busy. It’s been a full year since I took them in. Originally, I had some fanciful idea about sending them packing, but I couldn’t live without them now. Sandra has made a beautiful extension to the rooftop garden. Now we can grow hanging plants along with the one we already have. Tommy has really grown into a strong young man, I’m very proud of him. Saved my life on multiple occasions, I’m not afraid to admit. The twins are still an absolute delight. They get under my nerves every now and again, but I wouldn’t trade them for the world. That goes for all of them now I think on it. They have brought a spark into my life I’ve been missing for a long time. I would do anything for these lovely kids.