Titan
About the Project
This was a small assignment I was asked to do with the goal to create a working first person shooter that has functioning AI, unique shooter gameplay mechanics as well as an overall focus on level design.
I had in total 5 days to complete this assignment which I did in my spare time around my day job.
In this time I managed to create a functioning level, with AI, collectables and complete narrative.
Mechanics
Acid Rain
The first and main design choice was the idea of the acid rain that is a constant on the planet. The rain continuously deals damage to the player as long as they are standing in it.
The player instead has to navigate the level ducking and diving to shelter to get out of the rain. The level is designed as such to offer a path with overhanging rocks, buildings and other areas of cover paving multiple routes to the objectives. This makes simply walking from A to B a puzzle and adds a bit more excitement. It is also something that the player has to always be aware of, particularly when entering combat.
The rain is produced relative to the player in order to increase overall performance of the game.
Poison Heal
Although there are health packs dotted around the level for the player, the main source of healing is an injection that the player takes to heal any poison damage they have taken since the last use of the ability.
The reasoning behind this design decision was to prevent a slow boring death dying from acid rain with no health packs left available to the player. However, to keep the acid rain a constant threat the ability is on a very large cooldown.
Although the main purpose of this ability is to heal from the acid rain, it does recover any damage taken from all poison sources, this includes acid lakes and enemies that deal poison damage. This, coupled with the long cooldown means the player may need to wait for an opportune moment to trigger the heal, rather than waste it early on in a fight.
Sample Collection
Beyond the artifacts the player has to collect there are also other items of scientific interest to the player that they can choose to collect. In this particular level the player must take a sample from the lake.
The script is written in a way that allows for easy interchangeability of samples in a level and have the UI in-game reflect what is currently placed in any given level. This way, adding additional samples to a level at a later date is very easy and produced bug-free results.
Item Identification
Item pickups and intractable objects are easy to identify as hovering over them tell the player what they are, what they need to press to interact with it.
The text follows the crosshair, making it always visible to the player.
