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Hex Rally Racers 
Project Overview

Engine: Unreal 4

Team Size: 60 (29 Level Designers)

Development Time: 4 Months

As a Systems Designer on a team of 60 developers, with almost half being Level Designers in various roles, my main responsibility was to plan, develop, test, and iterate on powers they players could use during the race. I communicated across disciplines, created blueprints, meshes, and particle effects, created tables for powers and their gameplay effects, and tested constantly to find the best balance possible within the time we had

Roles and Responsibilities

  • As a Systems Designer, I worked with other designers, programmers, and artists to create the powers used in the races.

  • Created documentation for those systems, with their metrics and intended gameplay impact.

  • Tested gameplay throughout, iterating on power effects, timing, gameplay impact, and balance.

Image of powers table

Confusion Hex & Fool's Reagent

Though I was part of the team that developed the plans for all of the powers in the game, I personally created the blueprints for these two: Confusion Hex and Fool's Reagent

Confusion Hex 

The power changed from its initial concept due to stakeholder feedback after playtesting, and the final version is one I'm quite happy with. It started as a horizontal control-swap on hit, making right go left and vice versa. The final iteration caused the hit player to spin out of control for a few seconds, increasing the viability of the power in competitive play.

Fool's Reagent

Like the Confusion Hex, this power also changed from its initial design after stakeholder feedback - it became easier to distinguish from other pickups on the track, and the effect became similar to that of the Confusion Hex by causing the player hitting it to spin out of control for a few seconds.

Team Retrospective

What Went Well?

  • Met Development Goals - We set goals of at least 6 levels, 4 player co-op, 8 racers, 10 powers, and single race and grand prix modes, and we accomplished that goal.

  • Published to Steam - We were the third Cohort to manage to publish our arcade cart racer to Steam!

What Went Wrong?

Even Better If?

  • Pipeline/communication issues - Since our team was so large, communication did become a problem between various strike teams, slowing production and causing work to need to be redone.

  • Following Pipelines - Better communication between strike teams would have led to more cohesion amongst the entire team and a more polished product.

  • More Balance Testing - At launch, there was a clear hierarchy of which brooms/carts were more effective. A bit more time to balance them would have evened the playing field and led to more even distribution of player choices.

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