Hello and welcome!

For this final week I’ve almost exclusively been working on getting our design document ready for hand in. Some things needed to be defined more clearly, for example a level layout and what kind of scenarios the player would experience, to teach them how the game works and later on to challenge them. These will most likely not show up in the final version of our game, but they are part of the original vision we had and will be in the design document. Hopefully it will be a little inspiring and perhaps even helpful!

For this post I will describe what kind of scenarios I came up with. These are not meant to be set in stone, and should be viewed as a base set of challenges and events for the dev team to draw inspiration from and build upon. I should also point out that these scenarios came about through a brainstorming session and so I cannot explain exactly how every single idea came to be. I will, however, do my best to explain how they are interesting and helpful to the player. Let’s get started!

To start with, all of the events were made with two enemies in mind: The crawler and the soldier. The crawlers are simple minded and just walk towards the player, attacking with their clawed hands when in range. They come in packs of 4-10. The soldiers are more intelligent and tactical, but still pretty simple. They will try to use cover as much as possible, and when the player turns his back against them, they reveal themselves and fire their rifles. Additionally, they have grenades which they throw from behind their cover.

So, the list of scenarios! I will explain them in detail further down.

• Directing the player
• Using the enemies against themselves
• Bottlenecks
• Ambush
• Chase
• Trap
• Using cover

From the top down:

Directing the player

Since the levels are supposed to be multi-pathed, and the player is able backtrack it
would be a good idea to indicate where to go and where not to go. If the player is headed too far in the wrong direction ( that is, back to the start ) a large amount of enemies would spawn and chase the player in the correct direction. Of course enemies should be able to spawn in front of the player as well, so this has
to be balanced carefully in order to not confuse the player.

Using enemies against themselves

Since our soldier enemies can throw grenades that damage both player and other enemies, the player can be taught to use the thrown grenades to their advantage by luring any chasing enemies to the grenade as it explodes. This could be done by chasing the player with crawlers through a passageway guarded by soldiers.

Bottlenecks

The player would be overwhelmed by a large amount of enemies in a large, open area. To make the situation manageable the player has to lead the enemies through a narrow passage, focusing them into a smaller area and making them easier to kill. This should be pretty simple to implement since the player likely would run away from the large mass of enemies and into the conveniently placed narrow passage. For later levels the bottleneck areas could be made less obvious or less narrow to increase difficulty.

Ambush

This is more of a pure challenge rather than teaching the player about the game. Soldiers approach the player from two different directions simultaneously, forcing the player to avoid grenades and rifle shots. Since the soldiers mostly fire when the player has his back against them, they can be controlled by the player to a small degree. This would teach the player a little more about how the soldier works.

Chase

Again, more of a challenge than anything else. This scenario takes place underground or indoors where light is scarce. The player is chased by a large amount of crawlers in the darkness of a subway or inside an abandoned building. The fire or electricity power up can be used to briefly light up the scene, but will of course drain ammo which cannot be refilled until above ground again. (since power ups are air dropped).

Trap

Soldiers approach the player in such a way that they are cornered or forced into a dead end. With help from crawlers, they can trap the player if not careful. This has to be balanced carefully to avoid completely hopeless situations.

Using cover

Soldiers stand at the end of a narrow passage, with the player having to avoid being shot as they move from cover to cover towards the soldiers. This should teach the player to use cover more effectively. 

Difficulties

Due to some unfortunate circumstances we have not been able to playtest the game nearly as much as we wanted to. Obviously this made it difficult to imagine what the player would go through and what exactly they need to know as they progress through the game. Hopefully this makes for a good basis though.

That’s about it for this week. Take care!

About Marcus Quarfordt

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