Lewis Wray MA Games Design

FPS Mechanics Investigation / Ballbot Arena Project Outline This project is a top-down multiplayer artillery game. Two players take turns controlling a member of their team of robots. On each robot's turn, it can move a certain distance and use its two energy charges on weapons. Most weapons use 1 energy but more powerful ones cost 2. These weapons include basic gunfire, grenades, a melee hammer, and a rocket launcher among others. The goal is to use these weapons to eliminate the enemy team by reducing all their robots' health to 0.  Project Context As I didn't have any specific ideas on games I could make, I decided to begin the semester by experimenting with some first person shooter mechanics. There was more complexity to this project than I initially expected, and it turned into a detailed investigation into the challenges involved in shooter mechanics. With my new found knowledge on the subject, I decided to implement shooting into a top-down turn-based strategy style...

What Went Well? I am proud of the outcome of the project as I believe I achieved what I set out to. I knew from the beginning it would be a difficult task and just making the character run in a circular motion was a challenge from the very beginning. However, I persevered and created an effective and visually interesting mechanic. Because the main purpose of the project was for it to be a demonstration of technical skill, I think this alone makes it a success. All the extra mechanics of the game add to the quality as it demonstrates I have the skills to make an entire game follow the visually appealing style and not just a single mechanic.  What was potentially the most challenging task was making the boss fire lasers at the player. I initially created a laser particle effect and made it fire at the player and deal damage based on a line trace. However, because of the curvature of the tower, the laser would have to travel through the inner wall in order to reach the player if they ...

What Went Well I am pleased with the outcome of the project and believe it is a good demonstration of skill. It was also an effective way of teaching myself new technical design skills and a project I am happy to add to my portfolio. There is a good range of weapons in the game that will keep players engaged. The way this project differs to my previous ones in the fact that, with some polish and real artwork, it could be released as an actual game rather than a prototype or proof of concept. It is similar to the small, simple multiplayer games on Discord. Specifically, I think the camera functionality is a highlight of the game. It is easy to use for the players to pan around the level and view different angles, and it also does a good job of following the action of the game so the players always know what is happening. Another successful mechanic was the level event system. Each level had its own unique event that would occur at the end of each round when all the player have had their...

My initial plan for the game was for each level to be a single floor of a tower. The player would run around it, dodging obstacles and fighting enemies, then climb a ladder to the next floor once they have been all the way round the tower.  I think a better approach would be to have levels extend further vertically and employ stairs and ladders. There could be a lift system in each level, creating a form of fast travelling within a level like in Super Metroid or 1984 game Impossible Mission. Shown below are the maps from the two games that are interconnected by lifts. It would only allow fast travelling to different elevations but it would mean the player is never too far from any location on the tower. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FI0-UEAB7_o/maxresdefault.jpg https://maps.speccy.cz/maps/ImpossibleMission1.png