Time Rivals is a couch play action party game where you fight your friends in different arenas through time. Who will come out on top?
General Info
My Roles
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Team Size 14
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Unity
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PlayStation 4
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Project length 9 Weeks
Gameplay Designer
Level Designer
Summary
Gameplay Design
Player Feedback
I was tasked with working with the player feedback. With this in mind I worked with our artists, programmers and our sound designers to give the player as much feedback as possible. We added feedback in the form of VFX, sound, rumble and animations.
Controls
To make the player feel like they have full control over their characters we tried several control schemes. We started with having the characters only face the direction they are running and this was the only way to turn the character.
After some testing this did not feel like the correct way to control our characters. So in the end we decided to change the controls to the control sticks where the left would move the character in the direction you wanted while you turn around and aim with the right stick. With this the players had an easier time controlling their attacks.
Power ups
At the start we wanted the players to be able to choose between several different power ups. Where we would randomize four into the shop scene that is between each level. And only the bottom two players would be able to choose what powerup they wanted while the top players would not be able to get a power up to balance the scoreboard out. In testing it turned out players would intentionally lose to get the power ups. So to counter this we reduced the power ups to 4 total and every player would be able to choose a powerup in the shop scene and the power ups would be removed after each level.
Weapons
In the beginning we wanted to have only lethal weapons in the game. So during the first few tests we only had the sword which was a two hit kill. The next weapon that was planned was a blunderbuss which would serve as the ranged weapon. But after a lot of testing I came to the conclusion that we needed more types of weapons. So we added the crossbow which was a one shot kill weapon. We also added the non lethal weapons toy hammer and the baguette fish. These two weapons had knockback and would give players more ways to kill each other.
Level Design
Summary
The first level I worked on was the gladiator arena. This level went through several changes before I and the group got satisfied with its design.
First Iteration
The first iteration was a level with way too many things happening at once. First off we have a flamethrower appearing at the center which would spin around firing in two directions. Then there are hidden spikes which would be activated by players walking on the green pressure plates placed around the map. And with these two hazards going on you have spike pits all over the map.
Second Iteration
The next iteration of the map was an oval arena with spikes at the edges making it more open for fights. Two saw blades were added at the edges of the map. With these saw blades being added I set the weapons to spawn at the left and right edges so that players would have to go past the saw blades to acquire weapons.
Third Iteration
In this iteration I added a water pit with one bridge over it. The bridge was added as a trap that players could trigger themselves by walking on a pressure plate on the right side of the map. With the bridge trap added players needed a reason to get on the bridge so I made weapons only spawn on the bridge to incentivise the players to get on the bridge. A saw blade was also removed to make the level less symmetrical. I later added a second bridge to have more weapon spawns. I added some rocks on the left side to fill up the empty space and also give the players a cover from ranged weapons.
Final Iteration
In the final iteration I got a suggestion from one of our artists to add something to the bottom of the map to make it feel less empty and their suggestion would be to add a boat in the sand. The same artist had the idea of adding the pillar between the bridges to give players a safe spot from the bridge trap. We had experimented with physics objects on other maps and found that players found it fun to mess around with these so a fellow designer added boxes to the map that players could play with.
