P.A.I.N.T.
NOTE – Was only part of this project during the concept and pre-production phase
Game Designer
Sep 2019 - Feb 2020
Project information
Description
Genre: 3rd person co-op shooter
Team size: ±30
Platform: PC (Steam)
Project type: Educational project
Playable link: Steam
In this cooperative third-person shooter, you take control of the P.U.N.K.’s. Rebels that shoot their way through an evil factory with high-powered paint blasters. Sabotage the tyrannical corporation and fight your way through their factory to achieve the highest chaos score!
Responsibilities / contributions
Elaborating and presenting game concepts and features
- Based on our criteria and constraints, creating different game ideas and features
- Elaborating those ideas into game concepts, while within our design pillars
- Fleshing out important systems of those concepts, meta progression, core gameplay loop and level progression
- Presenting different game concepts and features to the team
For this educational project, we received the criteria for a cooperative game in a contemporary setting. Smaller teams were created to work on different ideas, concepts, and features. Design pillars were set up to keep a certain direction. Concepts with more enthusiasm were being fleshed out. Important features got elaborated on while keeping an eye out for the MVP. I gave multiple presentations about game concepts and features.
Researching game dynamics, features and references
- Researching specific game features, looting, and inventory systems
- Presenting my findings to the design team and explaining the best suiting system for our concept
- Researching different non-combat features
Once we established our design pillars, we started to define the core gameplay loop. My task at hand was looking into the dynamics around this. Our core gameplay was a cooperative third-person shooter with in-session and out-of-session gameplay with replayability. A looting and inventory system was a feature that I researched and documented. Other non-combat features would change the pacing of the game, to keep the player active and engaged. I presented those results to the design and complete team.
Setting up and maintaining design documents
- Breaking down the game concept into a MDA framework
- Setting up a Game Design Document and maintaining it, based on the concept and its features
- Designing multiple types of enemies and documenting them in an AI Design Document
- Describing the enemy behavior and their functions
Once we had a game concept, we broke it down with a MDA framework. Which would help us analyze the concept into sections. Afterwards, I created a Game Design Document based on the concept and the necessary features. We were still in the concepting and pre-production phase, so changes or clarifications were bound to happen. I was partly responsible for maintaining and updating the document. In order to create different combat scenarios for the player, I proposed several different enemy types. I worked with an AI programmer to think about the AI behavior and to document this in an AI Design Document.
