Platform: | PC |
Perspective: | 3rd person (top down) |
Genre | Tower Defense |
Engine: | Unreal Engine 4 |
Duration: | 2 weeks |
Team: | 3 designers |
| 4 artists |
Trajectory
Game Designer/Scripter & Project Lead
Trajectory is an intense strategy game where the player builds satellites to defend the planet from oncoming asteroids. As time goes on, the difficulty increases and the player must decide which satellites to construct to survive the oncoming assault.
My responsibilties included:
- Combat gameplay design
- Spawn system for the satellites
- Weapon, health & damage system for the satellites
- Spawn system for the asteroids
- Planet health
As a game designer & scripter, I spent a lot of time on the satellites: how they orbit, how they are selected, what types of satellites there are, what projectiles they fire. This gave me a good understanding of polymorphism and piqued my interest for combat gameplay design.
After creating the satellite systems, I worked on the asteroid spawner, game mode and then started balance changes. It gave me a good understanding of how much time it takes to balance combat, even with a small scope.
This project made me realize how important people are. It doesn't matter the product, or the problems - if you have a good team that you enjoy working with, you feel like you can take on any challenge. That became very important to me in the rest of my projects.
Satellites
There are 3 unique satellites in Trajectory. Each of them have their own cost to create and characteristics when they fire. I wanted the player to have to make an interesting choice when selected and firing a satellite: which satellite do they fire now depending on the current situation?
|
Minerals To Build |
Projectiles Per Shot |
Dmg Per Shot |
Dmg Per Second |
Rounds Per Minute |
Cost Per Shot |
Shots Until Empty |
Light | Medium | Heavy |
25 | 50 | 100 |
1 | 5 | 1 |
35 | 300 | 1500 |
420 | 100 - 500 | 300 |
720 | 20 | 12 |
2 | 100 | 50 |
50 | 1 | 2 |
Light Satellite: Gatling Gun
The light satellite is a fast firing and dependable choice. The player can build 3 of them in total, which gives them a broader range & line of sight. It has the highest sheet DPS, but it is very unlikely that the player will hit every shot and in testing we found that its true DPS was roughly 60% of its sheet DPS.
Medium Satellite: Explosive Shotgun
The medium satellite is slow firing but fires multiple, high damage projectiles which makes them great medium to light asteroid busters. They can only shoot once every 3 seconds and the player can only build 2 of them, which means the player has to use them wisely.
Heavy Satellite: The Cannon
The heavy satellite is a slow firing, single shot brute that will one shot any asteroid it hits. The projectiles travel quickly which makes it great to snipe any size of asteroid, but better saved for large asteroids with higher health.
Satellite Spawn System
When the player collects enough minerals, they can build satellites that orbit around the planet that they use to destroy the oncoming asteroids.
Spawn Points: Instantiation
When a new game begins, I create spawn points that the player will use to select satellite spawn locations. These spawn points have 2 different orbit heights and orbit continuously throughout the game until used.
Satellite: Spawning
The player can choose out of 3 types of satellite: light, medium and heavy. They all have designated spawn points and costs required to build. When the player holds the space bar, time is slowed down, and the spawn points become visibile while they orbit around the globe.
When the player clicks on a spawn point, the spawn point is destroyed and is replaced with the selected satellite. When the satellite is destroyed, it creates a new spawn point of the correct type which continues along the same orbit, allowing the player to spawn in a new one.
