Pit People
Design Portfolio
Pit People is a turn-based strategy game developed by The Behemoth that I had the pleasure of designing content and systems for as one of two Designers. Using XML scripting, a proprietary component-based editor, and extensive Google Docs, I spearheaded content design, creation, and balancing for multiple core areas of Pit People. In the below sections I’ll use the storyline mission “Clash at Bloodbath Lagoon!” to illustrate some of my decision-making process that went into its creation.
Design process
First, I want to quickly touch on the general process I utilized when designing missions in Pit People.
Concepting: This is the process of “what if” that is at the start of most mission design, and works best in an open forum with other designers, writers, artists, and leads. Pit People’s setting means that almost anything can be done, so this is also the process of taking that “what if” and narrowing it down to something that might be fun and mechanically viable for the game. Allowing this process to be generally free-flow and relying on discussion and light documentation to steer the direction allows for quick and easy alterations and minimizes time sink. The ideal result is to have actionable prototyping tasks that establish the major mechanical aspects of the mission on which the narrative framework can be built.
Prototyping to Completion: My initial goal here is to build out the core mission-specific mechanics and narrative hooks that the concepting established, using scripting, the editor, and placeholder assets to quickly produce a playable mission. Once that’s done, it’s a matter of iterating on the prototype and building it out to the completed mission. Regularly playtesting and getting feedback as the mission evolves, adding a little here and changing a little there, cutting what doesn’t work and building on what does; generally making small-scale, well considered design decisions based on critical analysis that build into a well-polished whole is the core of my design process.
Designing "Clash at Bloodbath Lagoon!"
When I began working on Bloodbath Lagoon my task was to spearhead the design and creation of a main story mission where the battle takes place on boats, in a colosseum filled with blood, and occupied by a giant sea monster. This was actually a very good place to begin: It has plenty of thematic inspiration to pull from, a definite and interesting setting, and a sea monster! Now I needed to take those guidelines and build a fun, balanced and exciting completed mission.
When approaching this mission, I wanted to ensure that the battle mechanics supported the environment as much as possible while also building on the core of the game. This would keep the player grounded in what they had already learned, while maximizing the potential of the environment and creating an exciting, yet approachable, battle. To this end, every mechanic that I added is rooted in the environment and both serves a gameplay purpose as well as plays a role in furthering the theme of the battle.
To more easily control pacing, I broke the battle up into four easily identifiable phases. These phases each contained clearly delineated mechanics and goals, and allowed the player to more easily parse the events around them and stay focused on their objectives, as well as the immediate battle at hand.
Phase 1
In this first Phase the player is on a ship and separated from the enemy team who are positioned on another ship. The player must dodge incoming cannon fire while attempting to position their fighters to activate their own cannons and return fire. In addition to fighters taking damage if caught by cannon fire, each ship also takes damage when hit. This finite ship health puts a timer on the battle and increases the player’s sense of urgency.
After getting the first prototype up and running, I realized the current mechanics made things too easy. The separation of the boats and the exclusive focus on the cannon mechanics meant that all the player needed to do was soak up the incoming fire and keep their own cannons firing. This meant the player wasn’t actively making decisions and was no longer engaged or challenged. To remedy this, I did three things:
Most importantly, I altered how the timing for the cannon mechanics was handled. The player now needed to remain positioned on their cannon for it to fire in the next round. This allowed the enemy team to disrupt the player, and meant they needed to actively think about the positioning of their fighters in advance.
I also adjusted the cannon’s center impact point to knock back any fighter at that location. This, combined with the timing change above, added an additional element of position disruption that made the encounter much more exciting.
Finally, I needed to give the player another layer of decision making. To this end, and staying thematically appropriate, I added springboards on the enemy ship that would launch enemies toward the player at certain intervals. Although these boarding parties were weak, they carried weapons that did knock-back which further supported the dynamic established by the timing change. The attackers also prioritized any fighters manning the cannons, which created a need for the player to actively defend them.
With the above changes the first part of the battle was starting to feel pretty good, with numerous decisions to make and tactics to consider while also remaining manageable. After the enemy ship takes enough damage the masts fall and lead into the second Phase of the battle.
Phase 2
The masts crashing down creates a clear and visible transition point as well as a nice cinematic event, ensuring that the player knows that the battle has changed and that they now have different objectives. It is further reinforced by the previous cannon and boarding party mechanics being disabled, allowing the player to concentrate on the task at hand.
To keep the battle grounded in the game’s core mechanics, in this second Phase the player must fight their way onto the enemy ship and kill a specific enemy fighter. This is much closer to a normal battle and allows the player to play more naturally, as well as balancing out the overall feel and flow of the mission. Because Phase 2 is more of a standard battle, I didn’t encounter any major problems and was able to move relatively quickly onto Phase 3.
Phase 3
The end of Phase 2 sees the player’s ship overturned by a giant wave, and Phase 3 begins on the underside of the ship with the player on one end and the sea monster on the other. In the initial prototype of this Phase the player would rush down the ship and kill the monster, resulting in a brief and anti-climactic battle.
To counter this, I broke up the level with two walls made of the monster’s tentacles which the player needed to break to advance. Interspersed within the walls were enemy groups to provide some resistance and create smaller and more manageable battle zones. This also allowed the player to control the flow of the battle to best suit their playstyle based on how quickly they destroyed the walls.
The walls solved one problem, but created another: they allowed the player too much control over the flow of battle. By not destroying the walls they were able to destroy the enemies in the area at their leisure, reducing the challenge and removing any sense of tension. To counter this I made three changes:
The first thing I added was a continuing threat from the rear in the form of the sea monster’s minions which, although easy to kill, were continuous and would eventually wear the player down. This incentivized the player to move forward while at the same time creating a tactical puzzle: do you split your forces or focus on one threat at a time? This addition immediately made the Phase more exciting and added impactful decision making, while also holding true to the core mechanics.
Next, I added incoming cannon fire from the monster which had a twofold goal: disrupt the player’s positioning with the threat of damage and reinforce the player’s objective by providing a carrot to chase. The cannon fire is dangerous, coming from a clear source, and retreat is not possible, so the player moves forward to attempt to stop it. This further helped to minimize a leisurely battle toward the sea monster.
Even with the above two additions, it was still possible for the player to camp in the backfield and pick off enemies before slowly moving up to finish off the monster. While I normally like to support multiple playstyles, this caused the Phase to be drawn out and boring. To counter this I added a tentacle that periodically smash the rear of the ship. This introduced a threat that encouraged the player to move forward, deprived the player of the terrain they needed to camp out, and greatly supported the setting and overall tension of the battle.
With these changes, Phase 3 came together. The player now felt pressure to move forward and had various threats to engage and meaningful decisions to make, while still having a sense of agency over the battle.
Phase 4
This Phase begins when the player has pushed through the walls and has reached the sea monster. The initial iteration of this Phase had the player attacking the sea monster to expose an entity inside of it, which was to be handled by a cinematic. Even with the incoming cannon fire still in place, the player could camp out around the monster and quickly destroy it. I needed to figure out a way to extend this Phase and make it more dynamic, so I made three changes:
The largest change was to make the target entity an active participant in the battle and make attacking it an objective. This change was made in close collaboration with the writer and director, and allowed the player to have a more impactful interaction with the narrative focal point of this mission.
To prevent the entity from being quickly destroyed I implemented a narrower window of vulnerability for it, causing it to hide after taking any amount of damage. After hiding, the player needed to attack the sea monster enough to expose the entity again. This created a timing mechanic that required the player to carefully consider the positioning of their fighters and maximized the dynamism of this Phase.
Although the above two changes created an extended and more involved Phase, the player could still camp around the monster and attack at their leisure. To disrupt the players positioning I added a fighter knock-back to the monster’s state changes. When the entity emerged and hid, it would cause an impact in an area and knock the player back, requiring them to get into position before being able to attack again.
With the above changes implemented, the final Phase now had a satisfying ebb and flow to the pace of the battle and created an appropriate final push to end the mission.
Balancing
The mission now had multiple satisfying mechanics that built on the core of the game and required the player to make meaningful decision throughout; in other words, it was pretty fun. Now I needed to fine-tune multiple elements of the battle to ensure it played well and finished with the right amount of tension.
Pit People employs a system of auto-balancing that adjusts the number of enemies spawned based on the strength of the player force. This meant I needed to consider any added mechanics in the context of that core balancing system. Below are a few steps I took to accomplish this.
I ensured that any fighters added on top of the core balancing were significantly weakened, such as the boarding parties in the 1st and 3rd Phases. This allowed them to impart their desired effects while not playing a significant role in the damage output of the enemy team.
The health of destructible entities, such as the enemy ship in Phase 1, the tentacle walls in Phase 3, and the monster and target entity in Phase 4, all needed to be fine-tuned within the context of the battle flow. As these influenced the timing of their respective Phases, and was adjusted based on the need to extend or shorten the length of a Phase and fine-tune the tempo of the mission as a whole.
Cannon fire is present throughout this mission: Phase 1 with the ship cannons, Phase 2 with observers thrown at the player (which I didn’t cover above, but can be seen in the below gameplay video), and Phases 3 & 4 with the entity cannon. All the cannon impacts are clearly marked with warning indications and could generally be avoided, although that’s not always possible. With this in mind, I adjusted the cannon damage to them threatening enough to want to avoid, while also not making them so damaging that they destroyed the player too quickly if they failed to avoid them.
With the balancing of the mission adjusted and built around the established core balancing of the game, the mission was now exciting, fun, and balanced.
Conclusion
It’s worth noting that the decisions described above were not made in a linear fashion. Throughout the creation there was a process of regular internal playtests, direction, and feedback from leads, artists, writers, and directors, and regular tweaks when the mission was released to the public in an Early Access environment based on collected metrics and feedback from the community. I also have not covered many of the other elements that went into the non-mechanical aspects of the mission, such as sound, particles, art, or dialog, all of which I collaborated on and implemented via scripting and the editor.
This is also just one example of one aspect of design that I contributed to Pit People. I was responsible for a majority of the story content, as well as a significant portion of side missions. I also contributed to larger design systems, such as gear balancing, loot systems, worldmap design and functionality, and narrative creation. I hope this gives you an idea of some of my design methodologies when approaching game design for Pit People.