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For the major project in our second year at AIE, I was tasked with taking on the lead designer role in our teacher led group project, Gunsect.

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Gunsect is a twin-stick shooter, where you must shoot your way through hordes of enemies with a modular weapon to clear out a now hive-like space station. With hundreds of gun combinations, the action is endless and the choices are yours to make. 

lead designer responsibilities:

Gameplay Design

gameplay designer responsibilities:

  • Overseeing all aspects of the game, from player and enemy designs, to level design

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  • Working closely with the programmer, iterating upon various variables to get a tight and responsive character controller

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  • Ideating various player feedback aspects on the players HUD screen

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  • Designing and ideating all AI behaviors for each enemy variant

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  • Being in charge of combat design; how it affects the gameplay, which module is given to each enemy and how that impacts the level

Systems Design

systems design responsibilities:

  • Concepting and designing every module, trying to make each module as fun and exciting to play as the next, each with its core strength and weaknesses

  • Having to clearly differentiate each module in the same category, while keeping it balanced amongst other sections of the gun

  • Extensive playtesting all modules in an isolated scene, as well as it being paired with all other modules as part of the gun combination​

BARRELS.png
Clips.png
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Module-3.gif
Module-2.gif
Module-1.gif
Module-4.gif

Early in development, I created a tool which allows me to easily plug in each module and their individual variables, which displays the core information needed to balance each one.

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This tool displays:​​

  • Time to kill each enemy type

  • Total damage per clip, including elemental damage

  • Time to empty clip

  • Damage per second

  • Amount of bullets and reloads it takes to kill each enemy

base ttk.PNG
ttk.PNG

Download the tool here

Level Design

Level design responsibilities:

  • Clearly identify a strong sense of difficulty progression, rules amongst the levels, and ensuring the other level designers understand and build appropriate level grey boxes

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  • Playtesting and providing feedback for all grey box levels created by the other level designers. Ensuring each level layout fits the core rules set by myself

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  • Tasked with placing enemies in all 15 pre-made levels provided by the other level designers. Testing the players skills through one core enemy weapon variant in each level, while also providing engaging and challenging gameplay

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  • Create a final level that tests the skill of the player on all the games core mechanics. Utilizing all the core weapon modules, and summarizing the game in one final level.

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  • Placing enough destructible creates to allow the player to heal, but also place them to guide the player around the map, and block off certain dead zones of the level

Easy Level example

Easy1.png

medium Level example

Med2Final.png

hard Level example

hardano1.png

Gunsect team:

​Programmer

  • Daniel Bainbridge

​Designers

  • Zacharie Drago

  • Kyle Willmesen

  • Joshua Copely

  • Hugh Walker

Artists

  • Loyd 

  • Jack

  • Mustafa

  • Jonah

  • Tom

  • Max

  • Jahrad

Special thanks to

  • Sam Mummery

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