Potential
Game discription
Potential is my seventh group project at the game assembly. "Potential" is a FPS game where the player finds an advantage point and kill of enemies by shooting them at their weak spots.
Overview of my contributions
I have been an all-around designer during this project. Where my main responsibility has been making sure that the intended game design is communicated and maintained in the group. This means, requesting the right metrics, level design with focus on gameplay, prioritizing the right feedback for playtesting, mock-up feedback and writing the design document.
Overview
Contributions
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Game design
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Metrics
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Communicator
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Level design – focus on gameplay
First iteration - Didn't show the gameplay vision
The mock-up below was done by the graphic team in Maya and Photoshop in pre-production. After an evaluation we found out that it didn't include high ground advantage and sneaky paths which is a important part of our gamepaly. It looked more like run and gun gameplay. After discussion with the graphic team we agree that we needed to iterate on the mock-up.
Mock-up: a Team Effort
First pass by us, the level designers
I had the best insight on how the level should communicate gamepaly, so I did a block-out of a level that communicated the gameplay. Then my level design colleague took over and decorated it.
Developing process
Second iteration - Add gameplay vision to the mock-up
This time we needed to make sure that our core gameplay where clearly communicated in the mock-up. Potential's initiative first gameplay let's the player shoot first to one shot the enemies. The new mock-up should position the player above the enemy and the level design should communicate sneaky paths. This time we level designers built a level in our editor and let the graphic team take over and finish up the mock-up. Below is the whole process.
Paint over from the graphic team
This is the paint over we got back from the graphic team. We saw that we level designers envisioned a more industrial brutalist style while the graphic team envisioned a more modern brutalist style.
Second blockout after the feedback
This is my second block-out pass on the level. Higher roof and more open spaces.
Final art pass
This is the final version where i contributed with a block-out, my level design colleague decorated the level and graphic team did a paint over.
Conclusion
Final version
The graphic team had a vision of an open modern brutalist environment. Level design team saw a more industrial brutalist style with sneaky paths and clearly communicated patrol paths. The process of making this mock-up helped the graphic team to better understand the limitations that comes with a initiative first gameplay. It also helped us level designer to understand the modern brutalist vision that the graphic team envisioned.
