XB2178 Game Specialism Assignment 2: Evaluation
For my Games Specialism assignment 2 project, I decided to create a multiplayer game. Each team has 4 players (4 red and 4 blue) who all work together towards completing objectives to add score to their teams value.
Score
If the scores hit 500, one of the teams completely depletes the other teams chest (situated on their ship) or the timer runs out, this will end the game and the advantage team will win.
Points are added to the team score when they kill a member of the opposing team, every time they click to take an objective or whenever a point is taken from the chest.
In terms of the game, it works well, with the score, health scores, objective health bars and player movement, including players swinging their arms to hit the opponent, all replicating correctly.
Goal of the game: Objectives
The goal of the game is to take the 3 objective zones. Objective A and C were designed to be closer to the spawn points for an advantage to the spawning team, with B being directly in the center to make it anybody's game for who will get there first and take it over.
The reason why I added objective zones into the game was to provide 'conflict zones'. These conflict zones are essentially where players are most likely to run into each other and begin fighting, which makes the game fun and interactive for players, as if players did not run into each other for the whole game, it would get boring and would just be a case of objective capturing, which is not what I wanted when creating this project.
To aid these conflict zones, each objective only has a certain number of ways in. If each objective was just a big patch of ground with no cover, players would instantly know where everyone else was. The way it has been designed allows for players to use cover and hide from other players whilst they are taking an objective or in conflict. The fact that there are only a certain number of ways in, 3 at objective A and C and 4 on objective B, will make the players feel slightly vulnerable, as they have to look around each entrance point whilst capturing the objective, or if working as a team, block those zones until the objective is taken.
I was hoping to add in a widget which told everybody when an objective had been taken, however, I did not manage to get this figured out in time, as widget replication is quite difficult in Multiplayer games. If I had more time, this would be something I would focus on attempting to fix. The reason why I would want this widget in would be to let players know that they need to go and recapture that objective from the other team.
This could provide some interesting game play situations, such as players taking the objective and waiting for the other team to come and attack one another, or allowing the other team to take it back and then retaking it after, as if the objective is completely taken, the team can no longer take from it and the scoring stops. The reason why I have set this to happen is so that players are continuously moving. If players can only gain a certain amount of points from an objective, they have to move to gain more points, meaning the other team can move in and take it back. If the score continuously rose, even after completely capturing the objective, each team would just take 1 objective and farm points until one of them reached the 500 score limit.
Buildings and line of sight
I have also added a number of props and buildings into the game. This is firstly to make the map feel fuller and more believable to players that they are in this world, but also to block line of sight and allow trap zones, leading to more conflict zones.
The buildings in the game add a layer of 'clutter' between the 2 sides of the map. This stops players being able to know the location of the other teams players as soon as the game begins and makes sneaking up on other players more eligible, as they could be hidden until another player wanders by then catch up to them. Blocking the line of sight also lets players stumble upon conflicts, as it could be hidden behind an object and when the player wanders round the corner, be thrown into the middle of an existing battle between other players. This makes players have to always be alert whilst playing
Some of the assets which I added into the game provide 'trap zones'. This is where there is only 1 way in and 1 way out, e.g. Buildings. As this is the case, players need to be wary of their surroundings before going into buildings, as someone could follow them in and kill them. Although there is no real reason for players to go into the buildings game play wise, explorer type players may wander in out of curiosity or to take cover or check if anyone else is in there. This provides smaller conflict zones, as there is more chance that conflict will occur if 2 people are in the same area in or around these areas.
Tactics
Players need to think tactically whilst playing. They can choose whether to take the objectives, go for kills or take the opposing teams chest. In testing, when players have found out where the other teams chests are, that is what they have centered towards. As this is the case, games in testing were over fairly quickly, as both teams rushed to the others chests. This is the biggest conflict zone in the game, as one team is going for it and the other are forced to protect it.
This mechanic was designed to add another layer of thought into the tactics of the players whilst playing the game. Having the chests means that players must keep an eye on it and working with their teammates to discover what the other team are doing. For example, if players decided to just protect their chest for the whole game, the other team could take the objectives and win on the score counter.
When creating the game, I wanted to add 3 game modes into 1: protect, capture and death match. I feel that these have come together well to form one big chaotic game mode, with players having to debate between protecting their own chest, capturing the other teams chest, capturing and protecting objectives and killing the opposing team whilst completing these tasks.
I feel that when players gain more experience at playing the game, they will start becoming more clever and using the chat box more wisely, allowing their teammates to know where they are and what the enemy are up to. This is where leader gamer types could take control and lead the team. The reason for this belief is that if 2 evenly matched teams came together as 2 teams of 4, they could form tactics to take objectives and protect their chests at the same time. Both teams doing this, would lead to interesting game play and the score could end up being the only difference at the end of the game.
Chaotic game play
When I was designing the level for the game, I wanted it to force chaotic game play. In order to do this I create the map to be quite small. The reason why I wanted it to be chaotic is on a personal level, when playing multiplayer games I tend to find the more chaotic games to be more action focused and this causes players to be more driven and immersed in the game, as there is barely any down time for players to be pulled out of the game, as they are always looking around for other players etc. Something else I found in my own playing career is that games which force the player to hold a button down rather than continuously click it can run the risk of the players being pulled out the immersion of the game. Therefore, when players are taking from the chest or objective, they have to continuously tap the button. This can cause frantic button mashing if other players are heading towards them as they are panicking and attempting to take as much from the objective zone as possible before they have to turn to combat, which can cause more panic as the players have to continuously click in order to swing their weapon.
Audio in game
In order to keep the game flowing through audio, I have placed a soundtrack to play throughout. This soundtrack has a pirate theme to it and will let players get more into the pirate mood. This music is also quite upbeat, keeping the players hyped whilst playing the game and causing them to want to play more.
Feedback
In terms of player feedback in game, the objective health bars will be displayed at all times and turn to face the player wherever they are in the world. This is so that players can always see the amount of damage an objective zone has taken. The bar is split, half red and half blue and will greater the colour of the taking player’s team colour. This is a visual representation of the objective health score which all players can understand as it is easy to read. If a player is on the red team and the objective zone’s bar is fully red, they know they have taken it. If the bar is half and half as default, they know they need to take from it.
The game holds audio feedback too, as when player’s get hit, their character will play a hurt sound to allow them to know they have been hit. Without this, players will have to continuously check the health score, which can be distracting in combat and other players would not know if they are hitting them or missing them, so this is an indicator that their shots are hitting.
Addictiveness
As the mechanics are quite simple, this game is quite addictive to play. This is good as it will keep players interested and coming back time and time again to play it, where they can learn more about the game and play more tactically. The game is addictive as it is constantly flowing and the immersion through the chaotic nature of the game keeps players on their toes and wanting to do well. The constant action of the button mashing keeps the players moving too and the combat keeps them concentrating on the game.
Symmetry
The level was designed in a symmetrical pattern. The reason for this is so that neither team will gain an advantage. For example, if all 3 objectives were closer to the spawn point of 1 team, they would obviously take control of it first and would keep hold of it as they have less distance to travel back into the fight when they die, whereas the other team might have to run the length of the map every time they die, which would cause a massive imbalance and cause players to get frustrated, causing them to lose their immersion in the game. Keeping it symmetrical on both sides avoids this from happening.
Actual multiplayer set up
I have set the game options menu up so that players can change their name and add their own avatar. The reason for this is so that when they talk in the chat, other players know who is talking. Another element I added was that when players are in the lobby menu, they can choose their character and team. This allows players to play on the same team as their friends and lets them play as a character which may represent them better. Once a character has been chosen, the other players can not choose this one, so each character holds the player’s identity. Another reason why 2 players can not choose the same character is due to the scripting behind the scenes. When a player spawns in, each character has been designated their own spawn point. To avoid overlapping players, when one player has chosen a character to play as, nobody else can choose this character.
Aesthetics
I wanted to solely create the whole game with everything in it. For this to happen, I chose to have base colours on the models over realistic textures, as adding realistic textures would mean I would have to spend a lot more time completing this. If I downloaded the models, I would have to learn animation in order to have the characters move and fight each other correctly. Also, as the mechanics are fairly simple, I felt that having simplistic models would work with it.
UI placement
I took reference from other games when designing the UI. The timer and scores were laid out like the way they are, firstly, to keep it neat and centered so they are easy to see, but secondly, I took reference from games like Battlefield One, Rocket League and Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Seige for the placement of the score and timer.
What went well?
The game runs well and does not have any major bugs in it. When people played the game they found it fun and were panicking whilst frantically button mashing in combat. This is the type of reaction I wanted the game to produce. People were also asking to continue playing once the game had finished, which is a good sign.
I feel that the level design allows players to feel free, whilst still restraining them between blocking volumes. I also feel that players having to seek out the objective zones allows for the conflict zones to be more effective, as it the objective scores were imprinted onto the screen for everyone to see, there would be no reason to go unless the objective status changed.
I feel that the game play flows well and keeps players involved in the game until the end, even when the player dies and is punished for 5 seconds by being stuck at their spawn point. This mechanic was inspired by Rocket League, where if a player is killed, they have to wait a couple of seconds before they respawn and can get back in the game, which gives their team a disadvantage for that duration as it is 4v3 until they are back.
When the player is killed, the game moves their location back to spawn. I feel this works well as it takes the player out of the game and gives the other team a slight advantage as a reward for killing the player, along with the physical reward of adding 2 points to the score.
What did not go so well?
A lot of time was spent trying to replicate the actions of the game over to the clients. Due to this, I did not get much time to implement feedback or textures, however, I did get it working in the end and that is the most important factor as I did manage to get a couple of testing sessions in and next time I do a multiplayer game, it will be completed a lot quicker as I know have the required knowledge.
Originally the chests were supposed to move to allow the players to control their chest as it is such an important asset to the players in the game. However, the replication would not cross over correctly, causing the chests to be pushed around on 1 screen and not the other and for the asset to float. In the end, I decided to keep the chests static on the ships (which also gave purpose to the ships and would be more realistic for pirates to keep their treasure on the ship). Unfortunately, this caused players to know where the chest was all the time after they first found it and meant players just ran for that instead of killing opponents and taking objectives. If this was a real game project, I could implement this in a patch once it was working.
I also created a minimap on the screen for players to always see above them. This was created with the purpose for players to be able to see where the objective zones were easier, as they could see the letter of the objective through the minimap, as the camera was showing the surrounding area above the player. However, when playing in multiplayer with another player playing, it would cast to the camera of the other player and display that, which would throw players off and give unfair advantages. Due to this, I took the minimaps out of the game.
What would I improve next time and how would implement it?
If I was to do this again, I would do more research into multiplayer scripting before starting the task and testing some replication out so that I was not mid project testing scripts and getting frustrated that they were not working. This would have also saved time for the texturing and more mechanics to be implemented into the game. However, I am proud that I managed to get the game working, allowing 8 players to play and that people enjoyed playing it when testing.
If I was to continue this project, I would fix the cameras on the mini map and get those working, fix the chest movement replication to allow players to be able to move it to where they wanted and hide the chests and make the health score of the player more prominent on screen so they did not have to check all of the other players health score at the same time as their own, especially in the times of combat, however, this was the most efficient way to get it working in time to test and hand in.
Feedback and how would implement it
The feedback I gathered from play sessions were asking to add a mini map, fix a couple of buildings which were blocking players between the blocking volume and the building and setting it so that the chests were not as easy to get to so the game continued longer. I have already determined ways to fix all these issues, they are just not working as of yet.
Screenshots of finished game
Map design on paper
Map at the start of the project
Map at the end of the project
Bibliography
Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8k9y2hunuU - Epic pirate battle music - Treacherous Waters, Antti Martikainen Music, Jul 28, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZMBxLnD4Lw - (Epic Pirate Battle Music) - Battleship, Peter Crowley's Fantasy Dream, Published on Dec 4, 2013
Scripting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abmzWUWxy1U&list=PLZlv_N0_O1gYqSlbGQVKsRg6fpxWndZqZ - Unreal Engine, Jul 14, 2016 (How to set up multiplayer through Steam tutorial)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUEXdt3wITU&list=PL56pcT0mYsOgFmbwukjKppPI_Q7E89jTK, Rainishe2, Dec 9, 2016 (Replication tutorial)
Replication scripting:
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/141733/cant-apply-damage-to-players-over-a-network.html - Apply damage over network
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzpiU4TY_js, W3 Studios, Jun 28, 2017 (Game State Setup)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrcbJrf3f14, Burnrate Dev, Mar 23, 2016 (Character movement replication)
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