Transformers: War for Cybertron
Developer: High Moon Studios
Genre: Multiplayer Co-op and PvP; Third-person; Shooter
Engine: Unreal 3.5
Platforms: Playstation 3; Xbox 360; Microsoft Windows
Released: June 2010
Gameplay Overview: A fast-paced narrative-driven shooter where players can transform between humanoid and vehicle anytime anywhere to achieve their objectives.
My Role: Game Designer (generalist)
Duties: Level design; gameplay scripting; mentoring
Responsibilities:
Principal design, blockout, and gameplay scripting for three missions:
Mentoring a junior designer
AI Tuning
Transformers: War for Cybertron was a formative project for me in many ways. I took on much more responsibility in terms of the amount of ownership over level and gameplay content, I successfully mentored a designer who was seeking to move over to level design from tech design, and I also got my feet wet in the world of AI design.
Highlights for me were:
Designing the denizens of Cybertron’s underground. Most notably, the Space Slugs from the Slug Ride sequence in To the Core - an idea straight from my head in to the game, and now ensconced in Transformers canon.
Being asked to lead a strike team to redesign one of the levels from the ground up to better fit the narrative and pacing for the campaign - Kaon Prison Break, and knocking it out of the park.
Designing and scripting several memorable boss fights, including Soundwave, the “Menace on the Core”, and the “Energon Bridge Guardian”.
Inspiring the team with my first transforming door prototype, which then became de riguer for all doors in the game, and a key part of how we manifested the “transforming world” direction we’d been given.
Mentoring a junior designer through his transition from tech design to level design to the point where he was able to independently run level pods and execute at a very high level.
Chapter II: Fuel of War
Fuel of War was the first level we attempted where players could transform in to jets and fly whenever they wanted to for as long as they wanted, so supporting that fantasy while maintaining challenge and creating believable player containment was the biggest challenge. My solution from the level design perspective was to create islands of gameplay that held key objectives best tackled on foot separated by treacherous terrain. In addition, I leveraged flying enemies and other aerial threats to keep it interesting while players were in the air.
My goal was for players to feel that transforming between jet and robot forms was an intuitive and logical choice to deal with the challenges I presented, rather than feeling like it was something they were being forced to do.
To cap it off, I designed a boss fight that exemplified this ethos - a circular room with spinning lateral area denial sweeps, periodic full-floor area denial, and gameplay patterns that encouraged smart use of the players’ two forms in order to succeed.
Chapter VII: Kaon Prison Break
Kaon Prison Break was one of those do or die, high pressure cauldron moments in my career that determined whether I lived up to my promise, or crashed and burned. I’m proud to say that I passed through with flying colors. Late in the project, it became clear that one of the levels needed to be reworked to better fit the pacing and narrative of the game, so I was asked, along with a small pod of other developers to redesign it.
The theme of the level was a prison break, so I decided to go with a classic trope of a bait and switch/Trojan horse where the characters willingly get captured so that they can then break out their target. We opened the level with a technically challenging sequence with a lot of pomp and circumstance to establish this premise. This was a risky gambit and almost didn’t work, but we pushed through and found workable solutions.
Finally, I’m most proud of the Soundwave boss fight at the end, which fulfilled a childhood fantasy of mine and I hope our players, too, of fighting and defeating the stoic Soundwave and his cassette tape minions.
Chapter VIII: To the Core
To the Core was, in retrospect, my attempt to meld the bombastic third-person shooter gameplay we were developing together with a “Journey to the Center of the Earth” odyssey filled with strange subterranean creatures. I was also very keen on mixing up the pacing of the action so that players would’nt get bored. Our levels were 45m - 1hr long, so they needed variety to maintain their luster. As such, the level contained a defend sequence, a moving turret sequence, co-op puzzles, and a climactic boss fight.
Because our game was co-op, I took a cue from Gears of War and included a sequence where the players get separated, have to support each other, and then eventually reunite. Although this was technically challenging, the team backed it 100% and we managed to get it through to ship.