Platform: Windows , OSX.
Engine: Unity
Tools : Unity 3D, Maya, Reaper DAW, FMOD Engine, Fungus.
Download and Play from Itch.io
Cielo is a 3v3 fast-paced PvP Arena Shooter. Dominate the arena by blasting your opponents out of it in visceral battles on the floating islands of the post-apocalyptic world of Cielo.
Features:
- Fluid movement
- Unique character abilities and an array of weapons to choose from.
- Fast paced multiplayer Arena shooter reminiscent of old school shooters like quake and unreal tournament.
Combining Smash brothers life mechanics, you will have to push other players out of the arena to kill them, damage makes your meter go up, the higher the meter the more knockback you receive.
My responsibilities
During the course of this capstone project, I’ve worn different hats
The major ones:
- Game Design
- Level Design
- World Building
- Sound Design
- Shaders with VFX graph
Level Design Breakdown
Level Design philosophy
Floating Landmass close to each other, few are connected to each other by wooden bridges or floating pathways, while others are close enough that the player can jump from one to another. Fits up to six players
The levels should be open with lots of verticality. No matter where the player stands they would always see the void, a place you can fall off to. Should encourage movement levels would have two bases and a common ground, each base should have a flag room and spawn area.
Modularity
For Cielo we decided to go the modular route, so that we could design multiple levels in the short period of development
The first step was to figure out the metrics and different structures we would want in a modular kit. This was done by playing around with a character controller programmed by the team.
Level Design Playground
Then after the metrics were discussed, the artist (Inasa Fugio) made the modular set for the game according to the concept art.
I then proceeded to paper prototype levels made from the modular pieces.
Level I - CTF_Hourglass
Hourglass is 3v3 level tailor made for the unique capture the flag mode in Cielo
I designed this level based on the 3 lane map design most moba’s and competitive shooter use.
While there are three lanes, the outer lanes always converge into the center lane which is why the level is named CTF_HOURGLASS
While the initial design had a bit of verticality in the middle, that was reduced so that the middle could be more of a chokepoint for players
Level Layout sketch and initial grey-box
First iteration after playtest feedback with minimal modular art assets
Second iteration with added foliage
Final Level after art pass
Level II - Angel's Court
Angel’s Court is a level inspired by the popular Quake 3 map Q3DM17 -The Longest Yard
It was designed primarily as a Deathmatch level but also supports Capture the flag.
Though not exactly similar to “The longest yard” it draws inspiration from it.
Quake 3 Arena :Q3DM17: The Longest Yard
Final Level after art pass
Level III - Training
Since this is a multiplayer game, I designed the training level like a sandbox but with linear placements of the game mechanics, where the player can go back and forth through the level and try out the movement mechanics, weapons and even capture the flying flag at the end of the level. Players can spend as much time as they want in training. We also had enemy dummies created by our programmers that the player could use the weapons on and see how each weapon was different from each other.
I used the fungus tool to provide in game tips and instructions to the user and also used it to visually program a waypoint system to guide players.
Training level screengrab
Game Design - CTF mode
The AI flag in Cielo
When designing our capture the flag mode, we found that the traditional method of CTF doesn’t make sense, cause the player dies only when knocked off the arena and the flag had to be reset every time somebody died.
So I designed a hybrid mode, where there is only a single flag, that has its own AI. It patrols in an area in the center of a level, and has to be shot by players for it to be stopped and then captured.
If a player is knocked back and dies in the spherical void that surrounds the level the flag flies back to the center and starts patrolling again till its captured.
