-Overview-
Development Time: Sept 2022 - May 2023
Development Tools: Unreal Engine 5
Genre: Multiplayer, Party
Team Size: 13
-Game Intent-
RagBrawl is a multiplayer party game where you play as a floppy ragdoll toy called a Tuffling! Battle up to 12 players online in a variety of game modes within imaginary childhood locations. Complete objective based tasks before your opponents for a chance at victory, and prove yourself as the superior Tuffling!
-Design Process-
In my final semester of attending Champlain College, I was onboarded as the Lead Level Designer for RagBrawl. The team behind the game was looking to both create a new map with unique mechanics that would support the movement systems they had created (Grappling, Double Jumping, Ragdolling), and to revamp their first map to better fit the design goals they had set out to achieve.
Our first process was to figure out two major aspects of the new map: Theme, and Unique Mechanics. Over a series of team meetings, we concepted different interesting playspaces that our map could take place in, the two most popular among them a Bathroom-themed and a Treehouse-themed map. In a tiebreaker decision, we chose to move forward with the Bathroom map. This theme then influenced our ideas for fun map-unique mechanics that would naturally fit within a bathroom environment, to which we ultimately chose Rising Water Levels, Bouncy Props, and Slippery Surfaces.
Once the theme and unique mechanics had been decided on, I set to work on creating the Bathroom level. I first gathered references from other games with similarly themed levels, such as that from Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, which I used as inspiration for scale, set dressing and layout. Once I had compiled a bank of references, I collaborated with my fellow designers to sketch on paper potential level layouts that I would choose different aspects from to combine into a finalized version. While designing the playspace on paper, some key questions I kept in mind included: Does this support the systems, Is this fun and easy to traverse, and How would this unique mechanic play with the basic geometry?
Miro board of concepts for the new map.
v1 sketch of bathroom map
v3 sketch of bathroom map
After sketching and digitalizing the final layout of the map, I moved into the Unreal Engine and began blocking out the basic geometry of the playspace. To achieve this, I utilized a new tool introduced into Unreal Engine 5 called the Cube Grid Editor. By extruding faces from a set grid size into static meshes, I was able to quickly create and edit the bathroom graybox to see how the layout would actually serve the given mechanics. This quick iteration allowed me to accurately scale the map and its base geometry to a size that was comfortable to play in, and acted as a proof-of-concept for how matches would play on the map.
Top-down perspective of the initial bathroom blockout
Wide perspective of the initial bathroom blockout
Per the level design pipeline our team established, as I was blocking out the map, our environment artist was working to model props from an asset list I composed for usage in populating the map and set dressing. As our artist committed models to the game repository, I would go in and replace the blockout props with the modeled versions, whose collisions I would then set up to act 1:1 with the model itself. At this stage, I additionally did a first lighting pass of the map to see how interior and exterior sources would behave.
From this point, both I and my fellow designers would be hands-on with the map, set dressing and fleshing out contained playspaces within the larger overall geometry. We experimented greatly with these contained playspaces, figuring out through testing where players most often traversed, and what places they commonly avoided.
v2 of the bathroom blockout with first lighting pass
QA Results of bathroom map focus testing
As the playspaces were coming together, so too was the relationship between the geometry and the unique mechanics of the map. We found that adding bouncy props that players could essentially trampoline off of was a natural addition to the movement system in it that they made traversing the map more fun and easier overall. Our most unique mechanic, however, was the map's Rising Water Level, which would dynamically change how players traverse the map the longer a match goes.
This map-unique mechanic posed a great challenge, as the design innately had to leave enough vertical geometry for players to traverse when the water hazard would eventually reduce the amount of playable space. Additionally, the water would separate these vertical playspaces, creating individual islands of geometry. As such, the necessity arose of having bridges / platforms that players could use to "hop" between these islands. I looked to places where these platforms were most needed, and diegetically created them by having the platforms be part of the environment itself. This allowed players to save themselves before falling into the water, and helped to reduce the amount of accidental deaths to the environment. Additionally, we chose to have some props, such as the Rubber Ducks and Toy Ship, float on the top of the water as it rose, leaving several "safe" spaces that players knew would always be there.
Rising water level mechanic
Towel rack and toilet paper holder used as diegetic platforms
Upside-down drawer used as a diegetic platform
Although we had programmed slippery surfaces in-engine, we found through testing that this mechanic ultimately did not aid the movement or the map in a fun, meaningful way. Thus, after multiple map iterations, we decided to cut this mechanic, which allowed us to focus more on the interesting movement the other unique mechanics brought about.
After continued testing and set dressing of the map, including a second light pass / a decal pass, the bathroom map - titled "Flooded"- was brought to completion, with the map supporting 3 of the game's 4 modes.
Final iteration of the bathroom map
Next came the task of reworking the game's first map to better suit the intended experience. In testing last semester, the largest overall issue with the map was its size; Players simply found the map too big, both vertically and horizontally. It was difficult for players to find each other, especially with a maximum lobby capacity of 8. Because of this, I chose to remove half of the base geometry entirely, and focused on centralizing one overall landmark of the map: the Cardboard Castle. I chose this section not only because it stood out visually and gave the map a theme, but its layout offered interesting verticality to play in, as the castle offered 3 levels: A bottom floor, a top floor, and the roof.
Original map overhead perspective (Kept geometry circled in white)
Reworked map overhead perspective
We found through testing this reduced size that players were finding each other far more commonly, yet not so much that encounters were happening too fast. However, players found is somewhat difficult to navigate the interior of the castle itself, as the original layout was built very maze-like. I consulted with my Level Design Professor, and together we came up with the solution of adding varying interior landmarks to the castle. This was to allow players to associate these landmarks with different rooms of the castle, so when they later recognized the landmark, they would also understand what room they were currently in.
Interior hallway of castle with star landmark
Interior room of castle with flashlight landmark
Wide perspective of bedroom map rework
-Documentation-
