Jordan Brown - Game Design Documentation Samples

Intro

Before being onboarded onto the Habit of Force team, what struck me when playing the demo was the lack of distinction between each Mech in combat. You’d expect each unit to provide the Player with different capabilities in combat, which would allow for the synthesis of diverse strategies to overcome whatever obstacle a level presents, but this was far from the truth. Others echoed this sentiment. Each Mech had different stats, such as damage, armor, and move and attack range, but they felt more or less the same in combat. With this in mind, my primary goal when I joined the Habit of Force team was to investigate and solve this issue for a demo we would present at the Made In Mass event at Pax East 2023.

Issues Identified Through Playtesting

• Mecha did not feel unique or special - in combat, they all felt the same.
• Players felt that they did not need to formulate strategies to overcome the challenges presented to them.

Probable Causes of Issues Identified

• Combat lacked depth because all Mecha featured the same actions (Attack with either Ballistic or Laser damage, Defend, Move) in combat. The Player was always presented with the same choices regardless of which Mecha they were controlling. Without any meaningful choices unique to a Mecha, their only distinguishing characteristic was their stats and 3D model. This would be equivalent to giving all Chess pieces the movement pattern of the Pawn, with the only difference between them being how many “hits” they can take before being captured.
• Differences in combat stats alone did not provide Mecha with a unique feel in combat.
• Actions Mecha took in combat lacked distinguishing visual and auditory feedback. They all featured similar animations and sound effects.

Plans to Address These Issues

• Design a system that will add depth to combat while providing the Player with meaningful choices unique to each Mecha and Pilot that will allow the Player to create unique strategies through meaningful choices.
• Define what each Mecha and Pilot combination should feel like from a mechanical perspective in an ideal world → determine what niche/role each Mecha and Pilot should fill in combat (i.e., Bell is a glass canon with high damage and mobility, Aurelio is a mobile support tank specializing in healing and defense, Desh is a utility support specializing in spacial denial and area of effect debuffs, etc.)
• Rework the stats of each Mecha and Pilot so they feel mechanically distinct while producing gameplay that enhances their fit within a desired niche.

Actions

• Designed the Activated and Passive Ability system that interacts with a Mecha’s Core to use Clatiry as the currency to use abilities. Within this system, the team and I ideated abilities designed specifically for each Mecha and Pilot to enhance their combat capabilities while hopefully helping them feel unique and providing the Player with the opportunities to make more meaningful choices in combat.
• Reworked the stat values of all Mechas and Pilots using the relationship between Mecha Integrity (equivalent to HP) and Laser Damage as a statistical “anchor” since the interactions between those stats are the most critical to the Player experience in Habit of Force. I learned about stat anchors while reading “Game Balance” by Ian Schreiber and Brenda Romero.

Prototyping and Playtesting

• At the time, our game’s architecture in Unity was unflexible to the point where playtesting our new ability designs in the engine wasn’t feasible. So, we made due and conducted the majority of our prototyping and playtesting by hand using whiteboards, markers, paper, and pencils. We were successfully able to test the abilities in-house with team members outside of the design team and with friends. Over time, we iterated on our abilities until we were happy with them for our Made In Mass 2023 demo.
• We playtested our new stats, which we iterated and tweaked over several weeks using our most recent working demo.