Back again! For the third post in the deep dives series we are taking a look at the process of creating an arena you fight in.
There are quite a few steps creating an arena for RETOOLED and very deceivingly time consuming.
Flow structure
First step is to think of a flow structure that is unlike a previously created arena and then draw it on paper. This process is very iterative and works like a check gate to whether the initial idea has some flow structure problems in certain areas of the arena and if the idea is actually worth continuing working on.
With comment underneath: “This step requires a bit of imagination, if the player is at position X, what possible paths exist? From experience, a good design is having at least 3 paths available at most times.”
Blockout
Next step is creating the blockout of the arena in Unreal Engine. Testing the feeling of running around in the arena, trying the different paths, figuring out if the scale and distance of things feels right. Checking different sightlines to see if something needs adjusting.
The second pass of this blockout phase is to look at the current paths and try to add divergent paths to them. By having these divergent paths emphasizes the use of different movement abilities the arena is now starting to feel like a playground coming together.
AI prep
All this work and we haven’t even added the AIs YET !?... well it still requires a bit of prep work to get them working on new arenas and…
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.. It’s done!
Arena Masters
For RETOOLED I have designed something called an “Arena Master”. It is essentially an object that lets me define how I want the fight to start, progress and end. There are a few arena fight “types” we can construct with this object and even mix them together.
- Wave Pure wave based or alternatively we could spawn an initial wave and as you destroy some bots more gets spawn in until the wave is consumed.
- Hydra Starts with a smaller initial wave and as you destroy some specific (or any) bots the amount of active bots increases. 6 turns into 12, 18 etc.
- Phases Similar to wave type but instead of having waves with a clear ending they add on top of each other until a completion condition is met. Endless
- Each of the previous types can be modified to be endless that will only stop as a completion condition is met. Perhaps a certain character is destroyed or an environmental puzzle is solved etc.
To retain the DNA of a specific arena fight I tell individual AIs what spawn position I would like them to favor depending on the player position. Thanks to this setup arena fights in RETOOLED very rarely have specific spawn positions for certain AIs so it becomes essential to think and react in the moment of a fight.
Stringing a few of these together in sequence or mixing them together, it can get complex quickly.
Playtest, playtest and playtest…. Ohh did I mention playtest?
Now the playtesting and adjustments begins. It is only now can you get a holistic view of the initial arena idea you had.
Environment pass
All that remains is prop creations, lightning, bug hunting, optimization etc.
That is it for this deep dive on RETOOLED but it is not all. Follow along as there is more to come and of course… Thank you for reading!
And remember, join the Discord to discuss the game and find out about the latest updates:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997590/RETOOLED/