Project: TATS
Project TATS was a project which i was contracted to work on in collabration with Abertay University. I worked with two others to create a game which would be used to for the purposes of teaching industry standard pipeline and development pratices for Designers, Artists & Programmers.
I was the main designer for this project and was tasked with creating the UI/UX, Two Maps (1 FFA, 1 Defusal) and assisting with general game design and balancing. This project was very fast paced with lots of iterations within a limited six week time period.
Designing ‘Streets’
The main map for this project was called ‘Streets’. We wanted to create an urban environment for a small scale 3v3 competitive shooter.
Streets was a difficult challenge for this project as i needed to create a level design which was balanced for both the attackers and defenders. Originally the map was going to be much wider with two bomb sites allowing for long rotation timing. This was quickly changed since the attacking team would have huge advantage rushing a bombsite with a numbers advantage of 3v1. This would cause the defending team to do a guessing game on what site to put all the people on. This map design would work perfectly for a 5v5 or even 6v6 shooter but not for our small scale 3v3.
So I took a different more unique approach by making one large wide bombsite with multiple different entrances. This makes the defending team still split up on the site to defend each lane but also remaining close. It also allows for more flanking options on the defending side and the attacking side.
This led to a much more balanced 50/50 win-rate for each side compared to the previous one-sided attacker high win rate. It also allowed for much more variation & strategic plays for each side which led to higher replayability and more enjoyable gameplay.
Designing the ‘FFA Arena’
The secondary map we wanted to create a small arena suitable for a maximum of 8 players for a Free For All Mode. This arena would be a symetrical level which a player could easily drop in & out of and quickly get into the action whilst also easily understanding the map.
The FFA game mode would allow for players to quickly understand the mechanics of the game in a more casual enviroment compared to the more competitive and complex design of the ‘Streets’ map.
The symetrical design in combonation with a Red / Blue themeing would allow for the player to easily idenfity their location and orientation during respawns in a fast paced FFA enviroment. This allows them to quickly get back into the action.
DEVELOPMENT IMAGES
