Welcome to Slimeageddon a fast paced multiplayer shooter that puts players in the a wide verity of arenas to battle it out amongst themselves with a range of deadly weapons all in the name of being crowned the best slime amongst the chaos and mayhem.
Introduction to project
As apart of a small team during my time at Teesside University we where given a total of 12 weeks to successfully work together with our team to create a game the had accessibility in mind and our main character had to be a cube.
The Team
The team consisted of 5 members with different skills and strengths during this project we all became close and found a passion while working on the project together even as going as far as to show it off at the ExpoTees at Teesside University.
Lead Responsibilities
During the beginning stage of the project I took on the role of the team lead working close with each member of team to gain a grasp on peoples skill sets and help scope out an idea for the project given we had only 12 weeks to create a fully playable game.
As lead I discussed with my team about the scope of our game and what role each member would fill along with creating several work documents for the project to help keep the team on track and understand the game we had in mind.
Project Breakdown
In order to help each member of the team I created a project breakdown document that covers each of the pillars that make up the project and how each element of the game would work.
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This document served as our development guide as we would refer back to this often when scoping out ideas and concepts for our games levels and mechanics
Gameplay Mechanics
As our team was design strong and we had few programmers on our team I created a document that was latter handed to our teams programmer who I had worked close with while designing our games core gameplay mechanics.
Pre Production Work - Level Layout Plan
My contribution to the games levels would be my own level I had designed early on within the project, this level was designed to keep distance in mind in order to make the best use of our games ranged weaponry.
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As seen within the level layout each element of the game was thought of to keep the level balanced while having an element of risk vs reward in the middle of the level having the most slime score spawners although a massive pit for the players to fall into if not careful.
Each player will spawn in their own corner of the level from here the players can use a verity of options to gain the advantage from rushing the middle of the map to gain the most score the fastest or even siting back and taking aim with a sniper.
Key Elements
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Green Points = Cover/objects
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Yellow Points = Slime Score Points
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Blue Points = Weapon Pickups
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Red Points = Health Pickups
My Contributions - Level Design
Whilst helping other members of the team with their own level design for our games other levels I had created my verry own to be added amongst the verity of maps we intended on adding to our game, for my level the theme and style would be that of a medieval dungeon with a larva pit along with creepy webbing and stone hallways and demonic platforms summoning a skeleton from the larva's depths below.
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As seen below this is the top down layout of the final version of the level this level had several changes made during the production process based on player feedback from moving weapon and health placement along with making the level smaller in some areas and increasing the size in others from the image below it can be seen that placement of the games elements have been taken into account to make the level as balanced as possible.
Challenges Faced - Level Design
When design the level some factors of the game needed to be considered when planning the level layout this ranged from simple things such as weapon and health placement to keep a balance to more complex issues such as colour blindness and how this would effect players within the level.
Colour Blindness - Level Design
During this project accessibility was one of our core elements that we needed to consider for our game for this each member researched into the different types of colour blindness, after this research a colour pallet chart was created amongst the team to help avoid colours that would cause players with this issue to be confused.
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The research found from looking into colour blindness can be seen implemented within my level amongst the 4 players spawn points using bright colours that have been proven to not effect players who suffer from colour blindness dramatically as the use of colour within this mainly dark level helped players identify where on the map they where and help establish land marks around the level with the use of these colours.
Size and Placement - Level Design
When play tested amongst a wide range of players amongst the University I personally found that work was needed to be done on my levels placement of items along with making the map slightly smaller as getting around fast was slightly an issue to begin with on this levels early builds.
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Working along side the teams programmer I looked over the players movement and ability's as the player would have several sizes based on how much slime score they had gathered that would effect damage output along with damage intake and the players overall speed and versatility.
Making the necessary changes where needed I put the level back to playtesting and found the changes that where made to the level received an overall more positive response as players felt that the level was more well balanced and was easy to get around at a fast pace giving different players different advantages based on their weapons or size during gameplay.
Overall the level had received positive feedback along with being unique within its own way from the other levels within the game as the level I had created focused on ranged weaponry along with leading the player to hot spots for combat such as the center of the map giving the level a range or ways to play and experience.
Production Work - Level Design Beauty Shots
Gameplay Video
Overall our goal of creating a game cantered around a cube character along with the inclusion of accessibility was a massive success amongst our team, along with creating a fully playable 4 player PvP party game each member of the project worked and contributed to this project with their own set of skills and amongst this found we all worked extremely well as a team during the project.
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This project had a lot of work and passion put into it from each member of our team and this shows within our gameplay video below during this project communication between the team was done mainly on Discord or face to face meet ups along with this we sheard our work viva GitHub.