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GAME INFO
Genre: Real-Time Strategy Players: Single and multiplayer (offline/online) Platform: Xbox One, Windows 10 Release Date: February 21, 2017 |
CONTRIBUTIONS
Position: Level Designer Duration: October 2015 - July 2016 (10 months)
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Campaign Mission 05 - The Cartographer
I was the mission owner for the 5th campaign Mission, the Cartographer. It takes place on a Forerunner structure and heavily features Anders as a vocal and audacious Forerunner tech expert. The Banished have maintained an undetected presence here, protecting a tactical secret. As a Forerunner installation, the Cartographer is also heavily defended by swarms of Sentinels. The Carographer is the quintessential infiltrate and poke the Hornet's nest mission. Players command a powerful leader power to combat the oppressive Sentinel swarms and are introduced to a new anti-air unit, the Wolverine, which is indispensable for destroying Banished Banshees and Forerunner Super Sentinels which threaten the UNSC mission.
Design Goals
- Sentinel Swarms - Sentinel Swarms are a major focal point - UNSC is in uncharted hostile territory, poking a hornet's nest
- EMP MAC Blast Leader Power - Introduce the EMP MAC Blast Campaign exclusive leader power to clear out Forerunner Sentinel Swarms
- Wolverine Unit & Air Counter Introduction - Introduce Wolverine UNSC vehicle and provide enemy air threat to showcase its anti-air potency
- Anders Characterization - provide a gameplay and narrative space to showcase and develop Anders' invaluable audacity and Forerunner expertise
- Environmental Storytelling - As the only entirely inorganic, hard surface campaign environment, I drove the effort to achieve visual interest through depth and movement - semi trasparent floors reveal underlying paralleling structure and ambient Sentinel movement creates visual interest without distracting from gameplay
Sentinel Swarm
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The Cartographer features protective Sentinel swarms which block players from progress and only disperse when players use their campaign exclusive leader power, the EMP MAC Blast. I worked closely with an engineer to create an organic and computationally inexpensive designer friendly system for creating these swarms. Randomized range of horizontal ellipse radius, randomized direction, randomized vertical offset range, number of sentinels are examples of exposed variables that make this system modular and scalable. Development on this mission improved the multiplayer implementation of Anders's Ark Defense Leader Power.
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Wolverine Introduction - Air Counter
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The Cartographer introduces a vital UNSC unit, the Wolverine, an Anti-Air vehicle with mid-range missiles and light armor that Detects cloaked units. The Cartographer on boards players, giving them some starting Wolverines and tutorializing their construction via the Garage. The Wolverines are in indispensable tool for defeating the Banished Banshees and Forerunner Super Sentinels that are protecting the Cartographer intel.
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Anders Characterization
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The Cartographer heavily showcases Anders as a valuable asset to the UNSC due to her audacious fascination with Forerunner tech. Everything in The Cartographer is built with this in mind from the narrative beats to the Forerunner structure, which she infiltrates to gain intel. Anders is absolutely crucial to the UNSC's understanding of Forerunner tech and the Banished's relationship to it. With Anders's guidance, the UNSC is able to infiltrate the Cartographer and discover the Banished's sophisticated portal network.
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Environmental Storytelling - Visual Interest In a Distinctly Cold Inorganic Setting
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The Cartographer is the only Halo Wars 2 campaign mission to feature a fully inorganic hard surface playspace. While the other environments rely on vegetation and terrain variety to provide visual interest, the cold, hard Forerunner structure had no such, privilege. Along with environment artist, Ben Nicholas, I drove initiatives for semi transparent surfaces on the playspace that reveal underlying parallaxing geometry, providing visual interest through depth and movement. Through weather effects and vignettes that hug the perimeter and move under players, we created an immersive and compelling environment without compromising gameplay space with encumbering clutter.
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Multiplayer Skirmish Map - Bedrock
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I was responsible for maintaining and balancing the multiplayer skirmish Map, Bedrock. This involved regular playtesting, feedback collation, and map modification while working closely with environment artists to ensure a level and enjoyable playing field for 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 variants.
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