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Team made through interviews, portfolio reviews and more.
Made for and presented at EGX London
Dare Academy Finalist
ChemPunch
Responsibilities
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I put the team together and originated the idea. Then as producer, I managed tasks, schedules, meetings and event plans.
Team Leading
Face of the team. Led many pitches and presentations, and was usually the first point of contact for mentors, organisers or the public.
Presenting
Using Houdini Tools, the level geometry went through many iterations, with frequent testing, inspired by TF2, Metroid Dread, and Doom.
Level Design
Designing and testing before creating cinematics (such as the intro), and all tutorialisation, through pop ups and scripted events.
Onboarding & Scripting
To enhance feel, I also aided in certain prototyping, UI design & animations, and balancing of values for most optimal experience.
User Experience
Role(s)
Producer, Level Designer
Team Size
8
The Background
DARE Academy is a competition where 6 teams are selected after rounds of pitching to present at EGX and MCM Comic Con. ChemPUNCH was made specifically to engage this audience. As such, pre-production involved budget plans, travel plans, research into conventions, a clear schedule and risk management.
I built the team specifically for this project, following AAA inspired interviews and portfolio reviews.
As finalists, we received one month of office space in July and frequent meeting and feedback from mentors, implementing and iterating the core game following AGILE Scrum.
Genre
Wave Defence Close Range Action Game
Duration
July 2024 - December 2024
The Project
An Intense wave defence where you punch guys and set them on fire in a Chempunk world.
The player, armed with a giant gauntlet and flamethrower must exterminate a never-ending hoard while defending objectives. These weapons specialise in different situations, and can have chemicals routed into them separately to grant new effects. For instance, if you punch an enemy with Sludge (Purple) you get a burst of health, but if you punch it with Acid (Green), it explodes.
As ChemPUNCH was made specifically for playing at conventions, it's built around taking less than 10 minutes to play, so includes constant progression, quick onboarding, high scores, and an adaptive difficulty curve.
Details
The 8 man team was created specifically for this project, and unlike other projects, I took the role of producer immediately, setting myself the task of creating an environment everyone can work without interruption. This was a test of my team skills.
Over the start of 2024, I was involved in over a dozen interviews and portfolio reviews for new members (that we contacted through networking).
These interviews focussed on ensuring the person was aware of our style, dynamics and requirements. For instance, only 8 hours a work day was expected, but we warned everyone that some members might choose to work more. Eventually, we founded a team we saw as the best of the best, but half of them I hadn't even met until this project began.
One member dropped out soon before we started working on pitches, forcing a quick replacement, and after this I focussed even more on tracking/writing notes of preferences and issues each person had, moulding production around them.
Team building, -
Forming the team
To make this team work, I first had to understand how everyone operated best.
I blended democratic, authoritative, pacesetting and affiliative leadership styles, talked both to the full team and individually as appropriate. I referred to myself as the secretary, to avoid a dictatorship style, but earned respect of the team through demonstrating my own contributions, dedication to the project, and hyping up everyone else's work.
Out of hours, the team partied and went to events, and a large part of preproduction was spent ensuring each member "owned" part of the game. Example, the AI programmer had the final say on any discussion of the enemy behaviour, and was rarely forced to work on any tasks outside of this as the project was built around this skill.
In conclusion, team issues were few and far between, with any being handled quickly, as we focussed on making a game we were all hyped by.
Team building -
Leading the Team
This is the most I've been able to reiterate a single level to enhance it. Both large scale changes, and small ones, leaning much more into the latter later on. Due to the DARE environment and interactions with other teams, I had frequent access to testers. Even before we had a build, I could test navigation and metrics by just having players walk around without enemies.
Originally, the level was meant to be a large scale arena, but our designer pointed out this would lead to most of it going ignored in a 10-minute EGX playthrough. So instead it gained a linear progression between different sections, interwoven to make the space still feel authentic.
Thanks to the Tech Artist's houdini tools, I could reiterate easily, whether it be widening chokepoints, adding more paths onwards, or making sections feel less empty.
Not to mention new understanding I gained for Unreal's modelling mode and level sequencer, finally exploring proper scripted moments. I had full control over the level, and wasn't afraid to experiment a little, to enhance the exeperience.
How to enhance my use of iteration and Agile in Level Design.
Lessons Learned
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Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
At EGX
Gallery
Charles Django
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