FUTUREGAMES // 2020
FLOT
Team of 12 ( 3 designers ) • 4 weeks • Unreal
FLOT is an intense two versus two task-managing, multiplayer battle where your goal is to sink your opponents. Team up with a friend and steer your raft down a procedurally-generated river full of hurdles and hazards. Bombard your enemies with arrows and explosive barrels until only one raft remains floating.
Requires gamepads
THINGS THAT I DID
LEVEL DESIGN: I was responsible for designing and set dressing the "river chunks" that created our endless level.
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UX / UI DESIGN AND SCRIPTING:
I designed and implemented the majority of the UI: Menus, HUD, and spatial UI indicators.
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COLLABORATION: I worked closely with the entire team in creating the overall UX, raft controls, and archery mechanics.
DESIGN PILLARS
MULTI-TASK MAYHEM:
The fun comes from deciding whether to steer, shoot arrows, or throw barrels.
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COMPETETIVE: Making a hilarious and hectic multiplayer experience that brings out the worst in people.
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STRATEGIC SYNERGIES: Making the best use of your arsenal by combining explosive barrels and igniting arrows.
GAME FLOW
The goal of the game is to sink your opponent's raft while protecting your own. You do so by multi-tasking between three different abilities: paddling, throwing explosive barrels, and shooting arrows.
The health of each raft is drawn in the serpent shape on the HUD. The last raft floating wins.
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LOWERS RAFT
HEALTH
PADDLE
PICK UP BARREL
RESPAWN
PICK UP BOW
SHOOT
THROW
INTO HAZARD
INTO BARREL
AT BARREL
AT PLAYER
PLAYER OVERBOARD
DECIDE TASK
DROP
5 SECONDS
5 SECONDS
"PROCEDURAL" LEVEL
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3. CHUNK UNLOAD
Once it's behind the camera the chunk unloads, saving memory.
2. MOVING WORLD
The chunks are moving at a constant speed. The camera and the rafts stay in position.
The win condition is based on the raft's health and not a timer. Therefore we needed to come up with a level that could last, technically, forever. The solution became a random chunk spawner that would create an endless river.
1. CHUNK SPAWN
A level chunk is picked at random and attaches to the previous one.
DESIGNING CHUNKS
I designed and set dressed a total of 7 unique chunks in order to have the battle arena feel alive and non-repetitive.
Aestethics aside, it was also important to have the chunks feel different in their gameplay and pacing.
BREATHER
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THE SPLIT
Adding breathing room by letting the rafts pass on each side of a landmark.
BARRELS
ARROWS
BREATHER
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BARRELS
ARROWS
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PADDLE
BARRELS
ARROWS
THE RAVINE
Changing the elevation drastically on the sides added drama to our river.
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THE REEDS
On the contrary, the reed chunk is flat and almost zen-like. The damage-inflicting rocks are easily avoided here as they don't appear on the golden path.
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PADDLE
BARRELS
ARROWS
THE DOCK
We felt that we needed a good mix of vegetation and manmade environments. The dock contains breakable rocks that inflict damage on the rafts when you collide with them.
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PADDLE
BARRELS
ARROWS
THE TURN
The turn disrupts the standard straightforwardness of the river and makes the paddling harder to anticipate. Also here, the pillars break and cause damage when you run into them.
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ARROWS
BARRELS
PADDLE
THE BRIDGE
This chunk contains almost no vegetation but is purely made out of stone walls and bridge pillars that you need to avoid in order to not take damage.
