Job Overview
Hypixel was the first company I ever worked with in a professional capacity. I joined the company in a consulting Game Design position, doing everything from initial ideation to QA testing. Our team, the Hypixel Player Council (HPC) was the swiss army knife that kept the server on the bleeding edge. I was primarily responsible for the Skyblock game mode, the most popular mode boasting, at its peak, over 200,000 concurrent players.
Designed complex combat encounters and AI behaviors that drove thousands of hours of gameplay engagement.
Crafted persistent item and reward systems to promote long-term player retention and satisfaction.
Collaborated across disciplines to design innovative narrative systems and ensure technical needs were met.
Tuned and balanced gameplay systems contributing to Hypixel Skyblock’s peak of over 200,000 concurrent players.
One last thing…
Yes, this project was built within Minecraft—but don't let that fool you. The design, technical complexity, and scale behind it rivaled that of many commercial game projects. Our team was over 50 paid professionals strong, and we consistently broke world records in player concurrency and revenue. Public estimates suggest we were generating over $20 million quarterly.
So before you dismiss this as "just a Minecraft server," take a closer look—not for my sake, but to recognize the incredible work our team put into making these experiences exceptional.
Creating Unique Enemies
Problem:
Creating visually and mechanically unique creatures in Minecraft presents a serious design challenge—especially in version 1.8.9. The game has hard limitations on entity rendering, animation, and AI behavior. With only around 20 viable enemy types in the base game, teams are forced to either get creative or risk monotony. So, how do you innovate within these constraints?
Solution:
Our approach combined creative enemy composition, custom AI, and dynamic spawn systems to push Minecraft’s limitations further than most thought possible. Despite the constraints, we found ways to deliver fresh, memorable combat experiences for players.
Creature Composition & Kitbashing:
We often combined existing enemies to fabricate entirely new ones, creating the illusion of complexity while minimizing dev cost. A notable example is a snake-like creature made by stacking Magma Cubes—a low-tech solution with high visual payoff. This kind of modular design allowed us to scale content quickly without compromising uniqueness.
AI and Skin-Based Visual Design:
One of Hypixel's biggest technical advantages was its infrastructure for player-modeled enemies. These enemies leveraged the base player model, but with custom AI, enabling the use of unique skins and animations. For example, the Phantom Fisherman wielded a fishing rod that could hook players and reel them in over time, creating a truly novel combat mechanic that would be impossible with vanilla mobs.
Dynamic Spawn Conditions:
Memorable enemy encounters often start before the battle itself—with how the enemy arrives. We invested heavily in spawn logic and presentation, making sure each encounter felt earned or unexpected. From a dragon flying in from the horizon, to a mushroom that bursts into a massive beast, these moments set the stage for meaningful combat.
My primary focus was on time-gated enemy spawns, which gave us tight control over pacing and tension. These systems allowed us to gate enemy appearances based on in-game time, location, or player triggers—ensuring players always encountered enemies at the right moment.
Creating an Immersive World
Problem:
Minecraft offers almost no native support for structured or immersive storytelling. There are no cutscenes, no voice acting, and no dynamic dialogue systems. The only official text delivery tool—the Book & Quill—is severely limited to just 256 characters per page and 99 pages per book. These restrictions make traditional narrative techniques—especially ones found in RPGs or MMOs—nearly impossible to implement at scale.
Solution:
The Solution: Let the World Tell the Story
Instead of forcing a linear narrative into an engine that resisted it, we leaned into Minecraft’s strengths—exploration, player agency, and environmental immersion. Our approach reframed narrative as a reward, not a given. The world didn’t tell players a story; it invited them to uncover it.
We designed the story to be deliberately elusive. Players wouldn’t be given cutscenes or exposition dumps—instead, they’d piece the lore together through journals, conversations, and environmental context scattered across the world. Dungeons, for example, often concealed key narrative fragments, revealed only after fully exploring and completing them. This shifted the story from a passive experience into an active one—a grindable, discoverable layer for the most dedicated players.
Character-Driven Discovery
Creating strong, memorable characters was central to our strategy. Without animation or voiceover, we relied on sharp writing, visual identity, and structure. Many NPCs used open-ended or cryptic dialogue that didn’t make sense on its own—but when connected across multiple characters, created a narrative breadcrumb trail. This not only gave each character unique flavor, but it organically pushed players to keep asking questions, moving forward, and making sense of a world that didn’t explain itself.
Making the Most of Limited Text
Minecraft’s Book & Quill system is, frankly, restrictive. But I saw that as a challenge worth solving. While most would avoid using it for long-form content, I pushed hard to make it work. I wrote and heavily edited dozens of journal entries that were distributed across the game world. These pieces weren’t just filler—they were essential parts of the lore, written to feel like authentic fragments of a larger mythology. Despite the 256-character-per-page constraint, I treated the format like narrative haiku: dense, minimal, and meaningful.
World Map
Journal Entry
