About:
This is the 10-week "RTS" project that I was participating in. In this project I created levels and took the graphics designers models and put them inside of the game with their corresponding components. |
Specification:
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Credits:
- Level Design - Carl Ahlberg and Christofer Schenström.
- Programming - Felix Malmborg, Marcus Göransson, Christoffer Wardh, Markus Rosensköld, Patrik Görling and Joakim Ekbladh.
- Graphic design - Jonatan Hagström, Benjamin Sjöberg and Anton Sander.
Documentation:
In this game project we where two level designers. We both started out sketching down two layouts each from the specifications we discussed with the programmers and artists. In the end of the sketching stage of the levels we had two levels each and from there continued quickly polishing them in photoshop to make them more readable for the other disiplines.
The tool we ended up using to create the levels was Unity. This is because it was fairly comfortable building our levels in it and we now could script for our game from within Unity itself, reducing the external tools needed.
In this game project we where two level designers. We both started out sketching down two layouts each from the specifications we discussed with the programmers and artists. In the end of the sketching stage of the levels we had two levels each and from there continued quickly polishing them in photoshop to make them more readable for the other disiplines.
The tool we ended up using to create the levels was Unity. This is because it was fairly comfortable building our levels in it and we now could script for our game from within Unity itself, reducing the external tools needed.
From what we discussed in the group we came to a conclusion that the easiest way to balance the game was to have a rock-paper-scissors type of gameplay. Which was quite easy to balance and therefore didn't take up too much time of the production (we only had 10 weeks part time to work with). And to make it more strategic we threw in that the player could spawn his/her units using points (later on called "soul points") that him/her would recieve when killing an enemy or finding a bonus on the map. But we couldn't only have a these three types of units because we didn't want the enemy team to be exactly the same as the player's. Thus we gave the player a main character to play as that would serve as a "Hero" unit that had better stats and abilities. If this unit was killed the player would lose.
This actually became a problem that we early encountered. If the player was killed he/she had to restart from the beginning of the level. Because of time shortage we didn't have any time to intergrate a checkpoint system. So what we had to do was to make the game alot easier than it previously was.
This actually became a problem that we early encountered. If the player was killed he/she had to restart from the beginning of the level. Because of time shortage we didn't have any time to intergrate a checkpoint system. So what we had to do was to make the game alot easier than it previously was.
We placed down the enemies, placeholders and a bit later we started scripting too. The scripting language we used was LUA. I had briefly used LUA before while creating lesser impressive mods for "Garry's Mod". But after our scriping on this project I got a better understanding of LUA. Though I think I would need a bit more time using LUA to use it more confidently in other projects and by that get a deeper understanding of the language. |
After a while the artists had replaced a lot of the placeholders. We also got some tips and tricks using the props to improve the overall visual on the two maps we had. From there I could more quickly prop out the second level. When I was finished with the propping of the second level I talked a bit with my co-level designer that I could finish propping his level as well. This was because of him prefering scripting while I thought that the propping and detailing was the most fun. Thus he started polishing my scripting and finalizing it and I finished the propping and the overall detailing of his map. This gave us enough time to create the third level that would be tweaked to serve as a finale for the game.
While my co-level designer where polishing the scripting in our previous levels I sat down and started propping and placing down enemies in the third map. When the map looked good enough I started to script the missions. While scripting this level I got an idea. We previously discussed that we needed a way to give the player "soul points" without the need of killing enemies. This was also to encurage exploration on our levels. So I took one of the props and proclamed it as a type of a "soul plate". I asked the artists for a decal that would serve as a marker for the bonus and a neat particle effect. After that I placed the decal ontop of the plate and then scripted so that when the player walked ontop of the plate the decal gets removed and the particle effect plays out to give the player feedback for the extra "soul points".
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When the third map was nearly finished I also realised that we needed a more interesting ending for the map that would be somewhat rememberable. And I knew that we didn't have enough time to create an advanced boss. Thus I aksed the others in the group if we could just copy the player character and give it another texture and size it up a bit. The others thought that it would be a good idea. One of our group member came up with the idea that we could explain the likness of the boss that it could be the player's evil twin sister. |
While making the boss fight I realised something. Rather than the boss only having more health I could spawn enemies via script. This was also so that I could give the boss a likeness that the player's hero unit also had (spawning enemies). That lead to that over a duration of time the boss spawned in a number of enemies to spice the bossfight up a notch.
When the game was finished it was well recieved by the other game groups. Though a problem came up for the last map. It was that I hadn't realised that the mission "pings"/"markers" was changed how they worked. Thus some people where a bit lost on the last map. But that aside the game was a success and it was really fun working on it.