Game Summary
Gear Up is a online multiplayer game where you build customized tanks, and battle opponents in deathmatch, team deathmatch and conquest! Construct your ultimate vehicle of war and feel the adrenaline as you bring it to battle in online arcade action! Now, will you go for the rumbling caterpillar tracks or the crawling spider legs?
Game Info
Genre: Arena Shooter
Players: 2-16
Platform: PC
Team size: 3 Members
My stay: 6 Months
Engine: Traktor
Contributions
Position: Generalist Game Designer
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Level design, from concepting to finish level
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Designing new Game modes
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Iterative UI/UX design on already developed features
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Concepting new UI/UX design for upcoming features
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Community Management; managing play testing sessions
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Planning future updates of the current business model
Level Design
During my stay at Doctor Entertainment, I spent a lot of my time to create new levels for the game. As of right now Cargoship Arena is the only map on Live.
Level - Cargoship Arena
Overview:
Key words: Jumps, Ramps, Fun to drive on, Two floors.
Style: Same Visual Style as Armed Arena.
Size: Small, 4-8 players.
Description:
The idea for this map was to make one that was fun to drive around on, giving players access to a lot of jumps, wall runs, tunnels, etc.
I chose the same visual style as another map called Armed Arena.
This was because the assets were very modular and fitting for the idea I had in mind. Armed Arena was a popular map but it's too open and unbalanced to be competitive so I kinda saw this map as it's successor.
Basic Flow:
This was the inital idea of the flow for the level. A lot of circular flow. I followed this as much as possible to make the level feel natural to drive on and that you never had to stop.
Balancing:
As you where at an advantage being on the second floor against enemies of the first floor the map needed some balancing.
1. Glass floor makes it easier to spot players camping at second floor.
2. Low amount of cower on second floor. It's very easy to get shot from another player at the second floor.
3. A lot of high cover on first floor to hide behind and cover that has a roof.
4. Low amount of ammo/health pick-ups on second floor.
5. In conquest mode all objectives are on the first floor.
Level - WaterWorld
Overview:
Key words: Water, Areas for hover tracks, areas for close and long range combat, Moving Platform.
Style: Tropical and Industry.
Size: Large, 8 - 16 Players.
Description:
The core concept for this map was to allow Hover tracks to use their full potential. Hover tracks unique trait is that they can move on water, however there was no map to really support this.
Level Layout
As this is a large map I divided it up in multiple areas to get a better understanding of the flow of the map. With this I could also focus on making each area different from the others, to give varying combat experience in one map. With this 3x3 design it was very easy to apply the basic circular flow on the map.
I've found that in this game where you (almost) always want to be constantly moving that circular flow works very well.
White box level - Playground
Overview:
Key words: Movoing objects, Traps, Changing Layout.
Style: N/A
Size: Medium, 6 - 12 Players.
Description:
The idea here was to make a map that had a lot of moving objects to create a battlefield that changed its layout.
Info:
This level was cut due to lack of time, however I've got premission to show it here as an example of what it looks like when I whitebox a level. (All boxes are made by me)
When I whitebox I color the pieces to keep track of which ones are of the exact same form. or if they have any special attributes or meaning.
Light blue - Moving Platforms
I used these to create dangerous and/or things that changes the map layout. ex. Trap doors, Bridges, Elevators, etc.
Dark blue - Cover
I used a specific box to indicate where to put cover that was not part of the building itself.
The rest are just different shapes.