Blasted Layoffs
Group Project: Lead Level Designer, Lead System Design, Programmer
Blasted Layoffs is a movement shooter in which players use movement mechanics to raise their speed and then use it as a resource to enable special abilities.
Design Intention
Game/Level Structure Shift
System Design
Blasted layoffs is built around speed. We wanted to create a high octane movement shooter whose gameplay and combat revolves around movement and resource management. The game has two basic movement abilities dashing and wall running. Raising the players speed grants them access to special abilities such as kinetic block, a parrying move, or bullet time. These speed abilities increase the rate at which the players speed decays. This creates a gameplay loop in which players are playing tug-o-war with their speed by building up speed to use abilities and then using abilities which reduces their speed.
Level Design
Movement is the core of Blasted Layoffs and the level design had compliment the movement system. Wall running is a core mechanic and as such the level must create avenues and pathways in which the wall running feels fluid and natural. This was a particularly challenging because our game takes place indoors. This led to the implementation of curved geometry to help players maintain their momentum and straight segments to serve as thoroughfares through the space.
This room does a good job illustrating how combination of level geometry creates pathways for the player. The red arrow shows how a player might decide to path back to a straight center wall and the purple arrow shows how a player might path away from the center.
As I began to build this space it became apparent that I would would need to take others off their tasks to help bring this design to fruition. Understanding time and manpower constraints this brought me back to the drawing board. Looking at what made our game unique and what experience we were trying to create I shifted the level structure to be comprised of modular pieces that could be reused. Focusing on how the player interacts with the space the level design was restructured emphasis to combat and movement rather than environmental storytelling.
Focusing on the rooms themselves lends the game to a roguelike structure this has the benefit of increasing the replayablity of the game and maximizes the value of our small team. Left is a beat map and mockup of how the rooms might connect. This structure looks at the experience each room creates rather than the whole level allowing the rooms to be more fined tuned/adjusted and the genre shift makes player’s more receptive of repetitive asset use giving all our assets more mileage.
Overview
Level Design Process
The levels started in a very different place with initial maps and blockouts aiming to create a more realistic office space and a more traditional AA/AAA experience. The movement was built in tandem with the level and as it developed it became clear that it was the most unique part of our game and the level needed to emphasize support that element of the game rather than focus on creating believable spaces.
Left is an initial mockup for a playable space. Featuring narrow spaces that seek to create the sense of a dystopian cooperate world where employees are just a number. Below we can see a similar space designed with more precise metrics and callouts to the types of spaces that each room was slated to become.