KYLE HANSELMAN

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My work on MadWorld: Warfront was primarily that of senior game designer. My work on the project included restructuring the game into an objective-based 3PS, designing the game's levels/missions, weapons/equipment, loot drops, designing wars, and it FTP economy. This also included building out much of the game's content within Carbonated's proprietary tools. I also assisted with tasks like UX/UI design providing initial mocks for flow and appearance.

creating a third person shooter part one

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In a third person shooter, the camera and aiming systems are paramount, even more so on mobile, where controls are lower fidelity and visuals are small. As such, numerous sketches were created to ensure correct camera placement across gameplay scenarios and how that camera relates to the 'Reticle Zone' which is our hidden mechanic that controls our Auto Aim featureset.

This sketch, and the one following it, demonstrated the difference in the scale of the Reticle Zone based on the player's state. This meant crouching would increase the Reticle Zone, as opposed to walking, making the Auto Aim more aggressive and the player's aim better. This encouraged players to use cover and tactics to survive missions.

This sketch demonstrates how our Auto Aim selects a target in a crowded field. Each enemy has a body and head target the reticle gravitates toward. The Auto Aim scores various conditions, such as nearness to the crosshair, enemy range, player input, etc. and uses the highest score to pick the target of the Auto Aim.

Weapon recoil contended with many variables that were controlled by Attributes on each Firearm in the game. This sketch visualizes what each variable is and how they work together to create a deep recoil system that feels unique with each weapon.

Weapons of varied power needed to visually communicate that to players with every shot. One of our primary strategies was to ensure weapons with high damage expanded the reticle further that weaker weapons. This sketch help illustrate how spread works within this design philosophy.

Another part of our recoil system was a spray pattern. This feature further differentiated weapons by giving each a unique pattern that took time to master. This sketch helped to communicate the system so engineers could build the tools that allowed designers to create these patterns.

While we invested heavy design and engineering time toward our Auto Aim systems, we also knew that player agency was incredibly important, so we made room for players to cancel out Auto Aim intuitively to prioritize targets. This sketch communicate how the player would move their camera to disengage a selected target.

To create more room for varied Gear, we created a health tank system. This system made health far more interesting and gave us more variables to modify gameplay through player progression. Due to its complexity, a sketch was created to detail how this system was intended to function.

MadWorld makes heavy use of AI companions called 'Squadmates'. We wanted to ensure Squadmates felt present on missions, but never in the way and somewhat autonomous. So, many sketches were created to visualize their behaviors, one of which being their 'catch up' behavior, which changed thier movement speed based on distance to the player.

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One of my primary methods for communicating designs was through creating visually simple and consistent mocks. These visual aids did a lot of heavy lifting for the engineers, helping them see the intent when written design was either too complex to fully understand or was generally difficult to explain. Many of the mocks I created are shown above with short descriptions of the designs they represent.

creating a third person shooter part two

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The Reticle in MadWorld is a pretty advanced system with many pieces all related to one another and gameplay situations. This flow chart helped communicate the terms for each part, what affected them, and how they related to one another.

One of the most important factors of the reticle is how it affected Aim Assist. This feature in itself featured several parts that were often confused before making a flow chart showing their relationships.

Our recoil simulation was in a similar spot, where a chart was needed to help engineers understand how various systems came together to form a system which simulated recoil when fire weapons.

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I mentioned on my Zero Day project that I tried a 'terminology tree' during that project to help the team communicate efficiently to minimize confussion from the misuse of terms. I used that same practice on MadWorld, creating flow charts to demonstrate visually how various terms related to one another. This was particularly useful for the 'power' system - a system which algorithmically determines how powerful a weapon is based on its attributes and displays that information to players so they can make quick and easy decisions about their equipment choices. More on power below.

This way of displaying information proved to be extremely important on a game with a complex meta like MadWorld where there are hundreds of items for players to acquire all with unique appllications and relationships. Not only did players need to understand what they were looking at, but developers needed a deep understand of game items to keep code clean and avoid errors.

fleshing out content - gear

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Each Attribute was given an algorithm to determine its power compared to others. Some Attributes were combined into easy-to-understand Compound Attributes to display to players such as 'DPS'. The Power Points were all then added together to create the final Power of the weapon.

Equipment, similarly, had a Power system. The primary difference is that while weapons were a more contained system, equipment worked by improving the player's character's Attributes, so it's value is based on the exact same Power math as the player Attributes.

This, and the following images, display how Gear, and their Attributes and Power, appears in our menus.

The primary way players acquire Gear is by finding blueprints for them inside of crate hidden throughout missions. Players would also earn crafting materials during play which would be used to craft Gear.

Then, after waiting on the crafting process They'd have a new piece of Gear!

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Considering we were creating a free live service game, it was paramount that players had a significant amount of content to encourage players to return often, grind for game items, and spend to keep the game afloat. One of our primary sources of content was our weapons and equipment. We created a complex system of Attributes to allow for near infinite variations of Gear then set off to build hundreds of game items for players to buy, craft, or earn.

To ensure players continuously earn better Gear and have items to strive for, we created a two prong system. Quality and Tier. Quality is based on the CURSE scale (common, uncommon, rare, scarce, exotic) would determine unique additions to weapon function such as attachments, new behaviors, and skins. Tier was represented as Marks and were level locked; they acted as direct linear progression offerring more powerful Gear as the player leveled up and were offered more difficult missions.

To balance such a wealth of game items, we create the 'Power System' which allowed us to compare the reletive Attributes of every piece of Gear and output a single score we called 'Power'. This system helped us ensure that more rare and higher tier weapons were balanced against each other and always more powerful than more common lower tier Gear. Eventually, we decided to surface Power to players to help them choose their loadouts more efficiently. All of this math and all Gear was housed in an enormous spreadsheet that fed all of this data into various other systems, such as the game's economy, to create one comprehensive document.

fleshing out content - structures

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Structures become visible to all players within the Clan once their resource is ready to collect. This encourages players to visit the map often and look over it for free resources and currency; this allowed us to ensure players would be up to date on the state of their Clan and the surrounding territory.

Once visible, players could tap on Structures to earn resources and currency to help fuel their war effort, play more missions, purchase items, and craft items.

Players can aquire Structures in one of three ways. First, they can purchase complete Structures from the store. Seeing as how powerful Structures are, they're priced at a premium to avoid inflating their presence across the map.

Players could also, very rarely, acquire blueprints during particularly difficult missions, similar to Gear, but with a unique crafting system.

Structures required immense resources to craft. As such, we created a donation system which allowed other players within the Clan to donate spare resources to all available Structure projects to make them viable. Players are encouraged to do this as more Structures meant more free resources for the entire Clan.

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Structures are powerful, permanent game items that player can place on any territory their Clan controls. Each hex has slots based on its rarity that determines how many Structures can be placed. Structures remain on hexes indefinitely but are removed when the hex changes control. This adds a layer of decision making to wars as player want to fight to keep their Structures while others seek to destroy enemy Structures.

Structures come in a range of qualities, just like Gear. These qualities affect the amount of resources produced or how often the resources are produced. Structures allow players to gain an edge in wars by providing a steady drip of resources for all kinds of uses.

fleshing out content - creating clans

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Clan territories are visible from the world map; each is differentiated with a unique logo, their country flag, and borders. The color of the Clan's fill helps each stand out, with the player's Clan being shown in blue for visibility.

All Clans are available for players to see via the Clan menu. This allows players to browse the nearly 1000 clans, see their logos and names, their Influence, the territories they controlled, and more. This helps remind players that they're part of a global experience and gives them a sense of scale of the game.

Leaderboards serve two primary purposes. The first is to give players something to strive for by fighting in wars to climb the ranks or stay on top. The second purpose is to make the world feel alive; players could watch Clans rise and fall, become active, or die off, gain control, or lose it.

Each Clan contains internal leaderboards as well to foster healthy compitition between players and keep them coming back to prove who is the most valuable asset to the Clan..

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Madworld is a worldwide title where players join Clans to fight in wars. As such, we needed Clans. Lots of Clans. This was one of the larget undertakings of the game. We wanted to have Clans across the entire world, each with a unique identity that applied to the region it began in and have each feel balanced at launch.

To accomplish this, we first calculated how many Clans each country would recieve based on an algorithm between their population and area. Then, that number of Clans was divided through the country based on population density so each Clan would contain roughly the same population. After this, Clans were modified across country borders to encourage some territory disputes on launch.

Finally, extensive research was performed for the areas each Clan covered. We looked at each area and gathered information about thier history, monuments, beliefs, and other culturally relevant details. All of this research was used to create Clan names, descriptions, mottos, and icons to ensure that not only was each Clan unique, but each felt culturally relevant to players in that area.

In the end, 870 different Clans were created and their territory mapped onto the world to cover every country.

fleshing out content - building levels

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Barnyard

Boardwalk

Checkpoint

Community Park

Mineshaft

Storeyard

Overpass

Gas Station

Alleyway

Lake Resort

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Levels in Madworld posed an interesting and unique challenge for me as a level designer for several reasons. The largest of these challenges was the platform: mobile. The levels needed to be small and performant while still telling a story and hosting exciting gameplay with enough space for many missions to be set within them. Another challenge was making levels that felt like they could be set just about anywhere in the world.

Extensive research was done to ensure each location felt global and that any player may have seen places like them in their region before. Levels were then built with the intention of swapping assets for different regions to ensure authenticity in the signage, architecture, and foliage.

Above are a handful of the levels I designed over the course of about a year of development. Each housed several different missions to maximize their replayability.

fleshing out content - building missions

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Enemies rush a series of explosive barrels while the player defended them from being shot.

Enemies rush a several supply crates while players prevented them from interacting and escaping with the crates.

Players attempt to defuse several bombs while enemy waves tried to stop them.

Players interact with several crates searching for valuable supplies while enemies tried to stop them.

Players race against the clock to escape a mine rigged with explosives while enemies tried to trap them.

Players sneak into a supply depot and gather ammunition to deliver to a getaway vehicle.

Players tamper with a radio station to bait out a powerful enemy which they must defeat.

Players collect an explosives stash and rig an enemy gas supply to explode, then have to escape in time.

Players go to several locations to destroy enemy encampments while being swarmed.

Players investigate several supply depots. Upon finding supplies, they fight waves of enemies as they escape.

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For each level, we crafted 3-5 missions. Each mission was based on a series of quick objectives. Our goal was to make these varied enough to be interesting but canned enough we could reuse their parts in other missions to both reduce development time and increase players' understanding of new missions by including parts they would recognize.

Above is one mission from each of the level. These missions usually lasted 3-5 minutes to keep a fast pace for mobile players - allowing players to play a mission or two during any other time they may pull out their phone such as waiting on an appointment, sitting on public transit, or using the restroom. We wanted MadWorld to be something players would play for a few minutes several times per day, so much of the game and missions were structured around this philosophy.

balancing the meta - player progression

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Players can view their profile and overall status in the Hub Player screen. This shows them their Infamy, accumulated Power from Gear, and gives them some customization options.

In the Hub Chracters screen, players can get an overview of their Squadmates. This is also where players can manage and level up themselves and their Squadmates.

Each character informs players when they're ready to level up, allows players to look at their Gear, lets players know who is in their squad for missions, who is on a dispatch mission, and who is idle.

Players spend their Reputation currency to level up their characters. The level up screen shows the traits, slots aquired, and any major stat changes on level up. These major stat changes occur on milestone levels.

When players tap 'Manage' on a character in the roster, they're taken to a screen that shows a comprehensive view of that character. This includes their Gear, the traits earned, total stats (including boosts from Gear). Players can change their Gear out from this screen.

The Clan leaderboard compares each player to others in their Clan so they can compete to be top dog within the Clan. They're ranked on merit (how much they participate in various features), skill (how well they play missions), and Power (their accumulative Power across characters and equipped Gear). This is all totalled into Infamy.

The global leaderboard uses all the same metrics, but compares all players against one another. Who is the best in the world?

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Considering MadWorld is an FTP live service title, we needed to ensure players could play for hundreds of hours and still feel that they had goals to accomplish outside of gaining territory. We didn't want players to 'max out' and have no personal goals left too soon. As such, we build a robust player progression system so, even outside of upgrading their Gear, players could improve themselves over time.

To do this, we had to ensure a few things. We needed player progression to feel meaningful through gradual through level ups, each feature ties into player progression so it feels continuous, we set up our earn rate and time tables to best ensure the average player playing several hours daily would take a year to complete just the level up proccess, we created an 'Infamy' feature which ranks players on various aspects of their performance/progression, and leaderboards encourage players to compete with each other on said Infamy.

balancing the meta - the crate system

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Upon mission completion, players are shown a screen which details how the mission went. It also displays the rewards, which always include a crate. Crate color varies to help communicate the quality/quantity of items it contains based on the player's score.

When continuing from the mission success screen, the crate is automatically opened for players and clearly displays what they've earned. In this case, I'm at my storage limit for Fuel and Salvage, so nothing is earned, encouraging me to spend those resources.

Players can find crates during missions. These crates, since they're risky to collect during gameplay, offer superior quality rewards and display those reward immedietly. This increases the mission's stakes, as these high quality items are only earned on successful mission completion.

Crates are most visible to players via the orders menu, where players earn rewards for completeing daily and weekly targets. Once a target is met, players can claim a crate. When enough targets are met, they can tap the bonus crates above to earn more.

Crates are also available in the store. Most obviously: the timed free crates. These encourage players to return to the store often to claim these crates and browse other spending options.

Crates purchased in the store or earned via Orders display the same, familiar crate item screen.

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Like many games of this type, players are given crates to deliver their rewards. This applies to dailies/weeklies (orders) purchases, mission rewards, etc. Any time the player gets something, they get it from a crate.

That said, MadWorld takes crates a step further using our Carbyne backend system. Unfortunately, as this tech is proprietary, I'm unable to show how this system works on the backend. The jist of it, though, is that all game features are delivered via crates. This includes player XP, enemy spawns, the weapons enemies spawn with, level up traits and slots, etc.

This system gave designers massive control over every aspect of the game and all tweaks could be made quickly through data and hundreds of crates. This meant that balancing the game never required new builds, but simple changes to the data the client pulls from. We could tune rewards, enemy spawns, the weapons they spawn with, etc. all in just a few seconds and clicks from designers.

balancing the meta - desinging wars

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When development on wars began, I created a massive catalogue of sketches showing the visual language of all war situations in a matrix. The language shown here displays the hexes around the player's Clan that available to claim. All in all, over 30 different scenarios had to be visually represented on the map and, for performance and clarity, could only be done through very basic indications like boarders, fill, and simple shapes.

This sketch represents the wars currently available to the player's Clan on enemy territory.

This sketch represents the player's Clan in a defensive war against an enemy invasion where the player's Clan is winning. The red borders suggest a war is occurring, the arrows show the direction of the front, and the fill represents the war's state, blue = winning.

This sketch represents the player's Clan in a defensive war against an enemy invasion where the player's Clan is losing. It has all the same elements as before, but the fill has turned red to indicate losing.

This sketch represents what the map may look like early game. Enemy Clans are indicated with black borders and warm colors, highlighted white hexes show ports (which allow players to start war over seas), and bright hexes show unowned territory being claimed.

This sketch represents what the map may look like a few weeks after launch. All the same rules as before apply but green hexes are non-war supply missions, yellow glow highlights wars with the player's Clan, and numbers show the player's earned War Points.

This sketch represents what the map may look like a few months after launch. Most unowned territory has been claimed and the world is hot with wars all over the map between Clans.

This screenshot shows what central Europe looks like several months after launch, with wars all over the continent. Over time, after launch, the visual language was refined to present only the most valuable information to players.

Here, my Clan is at war with another Clan and we're fighting for the areas around Vancouver. The world map screen shows the status of the war, let's me tap 'Battle' to quickly hop into a mission on the most valuable hex to streamline play, and displays the squadmates I have available for dispatch (a feature that allows extra squadmates to take on missions solo).

During war, each hex in the warfront adopts a unique screen which shows the state of the war and that specific hex. I can see the total War Points earned in the war, how many were earned on this hex, and a leaderboard of who all participated in missions on this hex.

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Wars are the central focus, the linchpin, of MadWorld. Everything within the game focusses on wars. Players progress to perform better in war, players purchase to perform better in war, all missions are tied to war, etc. War is all about fighting other Clans to claim their territory for your Clan. As such, creating a war system that was intersting and rewarding was paramount and the entire game is geared toward selling it as a concept and making it fun and interesting for veterans and easy to read without much instruction for newer players.

Unfortunately, the details of how wars work are too much to cover in a portfolio. However, the basics are: the world is divided into hexes each controlled by a Clan. Players select a hex they want and begin a war on it, starting a front for a limited time. Then, both Clans run missions on the warfront to earn War Points before the timer ends. When the timer ends, so does the war. The Clan with the most War Points wins. When they win, their Clan claims whichever hexes the winning team had the most War Points on.

This system encouraged players to look for hexes with the most value (which determins how many Structures they can build on it among other benefits) and fight hard for it. Since the world map is a real representation of the world, we found players would often fight harder, and play longer, to claim hexes containing cities, monuments, and geography they had a personal, real-world, attachment to, making wars emotionally compelling outside of pure competition.

One of the biggest challenges of war was ensuring balance as we didn't want larger Clans to crush smaller ones, creating a snowball of success until a single Clan controlled the world. To solve this, we implemented a Fuel feature, which required players to spend Fuel to run missions. Fuel cost increased as more missions were run and scaled faster for larger Clans. This ensures larger Clans 'gas out' before smaller ones, giving and edge to up and coming Clans over established ones.