The Big VS. Them All
The Capstone project in Sheridan College. A 1v1 online asymmetrical real-time battle game.
DESIGN BRIEF
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Tasked with level design.
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The game was made by a team of 6 over 14 weeks.
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Level co-developed by another level designer and myself.
PROJECT DETAILS
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Tools:
- Engine: Unity
- Procreate, whiteboard, and marker
- Figma, Milanote, Miroboard, HacknPlan
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Purchased asset packages:
- POLYGON Tropical Jungle - Nature Biomes
- POLYGON Particle FX- Low Poly 3D Art By Synty
- Monster Pack Vol 11
- Ultimate clean GUI pack | 2D GUI
- The Fog of War
- Sci-Fi Arsenal
LEVEL OVERVIEW
GAME OVERVIEW
FACTION/ GAME LOOP
In this game one player plays as a giant monster (MOBA- styled), while the other player plays the role of a commander of an entire human army (RTS- styled), and both battle for control of the island.
MONSTER
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MOBA-like gameplay style.
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The monster needs to destroy all bases to win the game.
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Monster has extra speed in water.
DESTROY BASES
GAIN EXPERIENCE
MONSTER GROW
FIGHT
HUMAN ARMY
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RTS-like gameplay style.
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The player needs to kill the monster to win the game.
CAPTURE BASES
GAIN ENERGY
ARMY EXPAND
FIGHT
OTHERS
THE GEYSER
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High-risk, high-reward temporary event.
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Occupying it is not a necessary condition for winning the game but provides a significant boost to the player who captures it.
WILDLIFE ANIMALS
("CAMP")
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Secondary objective.
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A backup energy resource for monster.
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Early game threat.
PRE-DESIGN
DESIGN CHALLENGES
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Learn Before Work:
The game combines MOBA and RTS elements in a unique way, there are no similar games to use as reference directly.
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Give players a relatively balanced experience in an asymmetrical level as well as asymmetrical faction mechanics.
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Give players as much freedom as possible to navigate, focusing on multiple paths which allow them to take detours or set up ambushes.
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Use the natural environment of our island to inform an organic level design.
REFERENCE
The level takes place on the island with various environments. We gathered references from other game levels and concept art to help us build this playground.
PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT
MODULARITY VS. RATIONALITY
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The level requires an organic shape to express the island.
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Modularity limited our way of brainstorming, while the rational level design method better consolidated the adjustable aspects of each section.
MODIFIABLE FACTORS
We used smaller island segments to test the reliability of the pipeline in the Alpha build, the entire level was not fully considered at that time. Therefore the level became an archipelago , based on the diagram shown below.
PIPELINE TESTING: ALPHA BUILD
We tested the pipeline's usability in the alpha test, our goals are:
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Move with intention: multiple paths for players to choose from.
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Organic design: the structure and shape of the level should fit the environmental setting.
Brainstorm/ prototype on whiteboard
Blockout in procreate
Level built in Unity
ALPHA TEST REFLECTION
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The pipeline works. The level meets our expectation.
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Using water paths at the level's edges should be used cautiously to prevent giving monsters too much of an advantage.
DESIGN PROCESS
GENERAL STRUCTURE (CONCEPT)
We conceptualized the general structure of the level to be equilateral triangle-shaped, to ensure that theoretically, the time required for any player to move to another area is roughly equal for both factions.
This equal moving distance can only be satisfied when the map has only 1 geyser, any other structure would break the balance, as shown below. Any short path to one section will always appear with a long path towards the other.
Each section can give player different experience.
ISLANDS
HIGHLANDS
DESERT
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The least favorable region for human army.
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The most favorable region for monster.
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Fragmented land masses, allowing monsters to move quickly between islands.
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The most favorable region for human army.
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The least favorable region for monster.
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Easy to enter the area through water, but there is no water path through the region.
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A region that is relatively balanced for both factions.
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A water path goes through the area, but monster must leave the water and travel a distance on land to reach the base.
RESOURCES DISTRIBUTION
The asymmetrical nature of the two factions meant that while they use the same resources, they are not approaching them in the same manner
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NPC/Neutral Camps should be closer to the respawn point of the monster since they are their most accessible early-game resource.
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Bases need to be close to camps, so the monster can naturally approach them.
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The human army needed to respawn close to their bases.
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Human respawn points should allow humans to choose their approach
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The army's respawn point should be positioned between a base far from the geyser and a base close to the geyser.
Based on these thoughts, we generated a diagram for distribution and respawn point location.
(Normally a bubble diagram will work here, however, there are so many paths in our design, which made the bubble diagram less helpful for expressing the idea.)
According to the resource distribution , we generated a layout of the map with three regions, this was built in Unity so we have a base to iterate with.
With all the work we have done earlier, the final map allows players to go from point to point, and have lots of choice in choosing paths.
GAMEPLAY
FLANKING PATH
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Multiple paths allow the player to ambush, detour, or flee.
GEYSER EVENT
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In order to make the geyser area important even without an event being active we used neutral camps to provide resources.
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The longer the players are in the area, the more likely they are to encounter and fight each other.