Game Studio III: Dev Blog #1

This semester, I was onboarded onto Team Tall Hat as the systems designer for the new Seafloor stage on Mapstermind. Mapstermind is a couch co-op 3v1 asymmetrical party game where a team of 3 must work together to escape a stage controlled by an opposing player before time runs out.

Since joining the team, I have been hard at work creating systems for it. The first issue that I had to tackle was the open design of the Seafloor. The Mapster, the aforementioned opposing player, has to use various traps to hinder the Piecelings (the other 3 players) in addition to less frequent attacks. However, unlike the first stage, the City stage, the Piecelings were not following paths. If the Mapster places a trap in a more open area like this, the Piecelings would merely walk past them.

I tackled this issue by creating multiple mobile traps, specifically, the Puffer Fish and the Clamling. These traps are first placed by the Mapster and given a cardinal direction to move in. After they are activated, they will move in their given direction and turn around after a set distance. If the Piecelings venture into their path and come in contact with them, they will be hindered by a status effect. The Puffer Fish releases a poison cloud that slows Piecelings and for a limited time. This slow can then spread to other Piecelings if they venture too close to the poisoned unit. The Clamling bites the feet of players that it contacts, inverting their controls for a limited time. These traps force the player to not only consider where they move, but also when they move, forcing them to take a more methodical approach instead of taking advantage of their newfound freedom after playing the City stage, lest they find that freedom is limited even further.

Overall, I feel very confident moving forward as the systems designer for this game. I’m looking forward to getting this game ready for QA so I can get some critique on what I’ve created and improve it further so that this game can be the best that it can be.