Adriana Matic
Unreal Tournament CTF
This project is a grey box created for Unreal Tournament, for 3 vs 3 capture the flag. The map was constructed to be asymmetrical, allow for a variety of pickups, and for facilitating different modes of play! The project itself was restricted in what types of weapons were allowed, so the map only features the use of the shock rifle, rocket launcher, and enforcer.
The main design principles of the map were focused on funneling and leading the different players on the map towards each other, as well as the flags. This was achieved by use of shape language in curving corners to promote directionality, and by creating clear leading edges at entrances and exits.
The map was developed over the period of a month and went through many different iterations as testing was carried out.
Link to the LDD:
(Finalized Greybox)
(Diagram Showing the Full Level Layout)
Level Specifications
Engine:
Map Type:
Genre:
Number of Players:
Development Time:
Unreal Engine 4
Capture the flag
FPS
Three vs three
One month grey box, art in progress
Creating Flow in PVP
The greatest design challenge of this map, was successfully funneling the players to areas of engagement, and allowing for different play styles to emerge. It was critical that the map be within the correct size to ensure player engagement. The original map was a behemoth, easily able to fit twenty versus twenty comfortably. After a play testing session, it quickly became glaringly obvious the map needed to be cut down to size, but beyond that, that the map itself had to work to create deliberate play spaces. Nothing is as boring as running around an empty map with a flag, unchallenged.
Crafting Engagement
To ensure players interacted over the course of the map, I created a deliberate series of "funneling" points. These area's were designed to be of high engagement, were dotted with cover, and were the converging points of major pathways for both teams. There were two main points, allocating for the allowance of additional modes of circumnavigating one funnel or the other to ensure the map didn't force a match to stagnate artificially. The gallery shows how I planned out these points.
Additionally, the map was created with deliberately curved corners to lead the players towards these spaces. For example, walls facing turns towards the main lower level were extended and curved to make the opening more obvious than that of one of the side paths.
This is the finalized map as it exists today, without extrenious "special" rooms. The map is now tailored completely to play experience.
This was the original ideation of the map, built far beyond a usable scale.
This was another take at solving the size issue and attempting to keep interesting play spaces. I became enamoured with certain features and was bending over backwards to keep them in the map.
This is the finalized map as it exists today, without extrenious "special" rooms. The map is now tailored completely to play experience.
(Showcase of the Various Level Iterations)
Path mapping of the upper floor. All the projected map paths were gathered from playtesting sessions.
General path of red team from spawn one
Blue team spawn two mapping.
Path mapping of the upper floor. All the projected map paths were gathered from playtesting sessions.
(Diagrams Showing Player Heatmaps)