Summary:
CODA is my MFA thesis project and had been developed on for a year a half. I was the game creative director and worked on many aspects of the game including level design, environment art, audio design, etc. Below is the more detailed breakdown of this project.
CODA is a 3v3 Sci-fi multiplayer FPS project featuring a new game mode "death mission"
In "death mission" mode, player will play either Escort or Bandit. Escort player need to escort a deadly radioactive energy package to a certain checkpoint on map while Bandit player need to halt the escort progress. The package will drain the carrier's health so the whole team need to pass the package around and work together to finish the escort mission.
Role: Game director; Level designer; Producer (Team size: 6)
• Recruited a team of 5 students and worked out a fully playable MP FPS prototype.
• Share creative vision with the team through feature pitches and design documentations.
• Blocked out one map and iterated on it based on playtest results.
• Schedule weekly meetings / playtests and manage the overall production pipeline.
Trailer
Gameplay and some progress
Mechanics showcase
picking up the package
passing the package to teammate
Player die from package
deploying package
Level design
Level Metrics: This map is around 100 m x 75 m
It is a rather small map so I have designed a lot of verticality and traversal pathes for player to choose from.
Intended experience: Traversal gameplay and (mostly) CQB experience. The longest LOS is around 45 meters in this map.
Map breakdown:
The map is divided into two parts, part 1 and part 2. Part 2 is locked and can not be accessed by player before it is unlocked. Attacker need to escort the beacon to A, plant it and defend it for certain amount of time to unlock B point. They will proceed to do the same at B.
It is not necessary for attacker to unlock A or B to win the game as it is a score based game. The game will always play two rounds. Both team will switch side after one round. As long as attacker are doing good as defender in the second round. They will still be able to win the game.
Attacker and defender spawn at the same time. But the route that leads defender to point are shorter and more straightforward. So they will always be able to arrive point earlier and start defending before attacker arrives. There will be certain chokepoints for player to hold but since the map is designed to be traversal, player need to be aware of their surrounding and react quickly.
Environment Art
I am working on the first pass of the environment art right now and below are some screenshots.