PROJECT DETAILS
PROJECT TYPE
Solo Academic
ENGINE
Unity 3D
GENRE
Third-Person Shooter, Absurdist Comedy
DESIGN
Level Design
DESIGN
Narrative Design
DESIGN
Encounter Design
FULL PLAYTHROUGH
ABOUT AGENT BUD SMUDGE
Agent Bud Smudge is a third-person cover shooter made in Unity that focuses on encounter design, cinematic level sequences, and narrative design, while injecting humor into many of the mechanics and narrative beats. I used the Third-Person Shooter Bundle from the Unity Asset Store to open up most of my development time to creating content.
My primary goal was learning and practicing encounter design fundamentals, while also exploring other aspects of level and content design: scripting level mechanics and interactive sequences, animating cutscenes and in-game cinematics, and taking a level from an initial blockout in Maya to a final, polished, and playable state.
DESIGN PROCESS
LEVEL GALLERY
LEVEL ITERATIONS
ITERATION 1
Starting Point: The first pass focused on getting down the initial ideas and laying them out in order to test each encounter and gauge how they felt, both as individual combat scenarios and as a cohesive whole.
ITERATION 2
Problem: Playtesting revealed that the combat was somewhat repetitive, and the third encounter in the large, open room was not packing enough oomph for a proper climax. Additionally, the linear, corridor level layouts of the factory were not providing players with enough of a motivation other than simply moving forward and eliminating enemies.
Possible Solutions:
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Iterate on the third encounter space to provide more of a climactic finish in existing space.
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Create a new enemy type that adds variance to the combat space.
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Add an additional encounter outside the factory that uses the helicopter to motivate forward movement and create resolution in the experience.
Why This Was Chosen: While the repetitive combat issues would need to be addressed in future iterations, I opted to add a fourth combat space outside the factory to create distance between the initial reveal of the helicopter and the player reaching it. The intention was that it would give the player an end-of-level objective as a way to push them forward and create a sense of impending finality as they progressed closer to their escape.
ITERATION 3
Problem: The third encounter was proving problematic; the AI was consistently hiding behind odd corners that didn’t coordinate well with the player positioning, leading to players often getting shot in blind spots, and overall, the room was too large and open to create an engaging combat scenario.
Possible Solutions:
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Continue refining the existing encounter space and try to get the enemies to do what I wanted them to.
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Strategically alter the NavMesh in the level to block off problematic areas for enemies
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Shrink the space and create a more linear encounter that limits the amount of choices enemy AI can make.
Why This Was Chosen: Working through the AI pathing issues was a bit out of scope, so I opted to solve the problem with level design. This limited the amount of choices the AI could make, so they were less likely to hide behind odd walls, it helped push the player forward through the encounter, and it created more up and down beats as players traversed through the room.
ITERATION 4
Problem: Playtesting showed that combat was starting to get repetitive by the end of the level, and while adding the Drone helped, it needed something more varied.
Possible Solutions:
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Cut the final section and end the level after the third encounter
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Add some kind of gimmick or level mechanic to provide an objective that changes up the play space
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Add a Stationary Turret that significantly changes how the player navigates the encounter space.
Why This Was Chosen: I chose to add the Turret section for a number of reasons: adding an enemy without navigation was manageable scope-wise, it provided a long-range enemy option that could support a larger play space suitable for the climax, and it added an enemy that could not be defeated without proper player positioning (aka: you can’t destroy it until you move up the – very dangerous – beach).
ADDITIONAL CONTENT WORK
MECHANICS AND ENEMIES
I created additional level mechanics and enemies to round out the experience and create more variety in the gameplay.
HACK TERMINAL
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The Hack Terminal was created to add an additional interactive option during gameplay outside of combat.
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This mechanic was used for gating players to create clearer breaks in gameplay sequences.
DRONE ENEMY
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The built-in humanoid AI was not offering enough variety in combat over the course of a full level, so I created a Drone enemy for added dynamism.
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The Drone circles around the player's position and fires projectiles.
COLLECT-I-BALL
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I wanted a simple collection mechanic to provide more exploration options that didn't require significant systems design to integrate into the game loop.
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I took advantage of the game's humorous tone to create a sentient collection mechanic that was self-aware of its own pointlessness.