Mage Arena
Solo
4 weeks
Unity
Concept
Mage Arena is a dodgeball-like PVP game where two teams face off against each other in an arena to try to push the opposing team back using magical projectiles and quick movement. The goal of the game is to capture zones and ultimately knock the opposing team out of the arena.
Core Loop and Inspiration
My initial inspiration for Mage Arena came from a cartoon called “Avatar: The Legend of Korra” where the main protagonist partakes in a sport called “Pro-Bending.” The game is very similar, but it has a ruleset that I did not believe would be fun in a game form unless changed.
I also took inspiration from many competitive team based games I have seen or played myself. The games “Battlerite” and “Rocket League” are both physics based arena games that I took inspiration from, but each with drastically different gameplay styles.
The core loop of this game is very straightforward, which is one of the things I focused on when designing the systems supporting it.
Design Pillars
I designed Mage Area following three main pillars. I routinely reflected back on these aspects during the development.
Clear Rule Design
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I wanted to create rules of the game that are fluid and easy to understand so that the player can stay immersed in the gameplay without any disruptions and should always know what to do next.
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I am a strong believer in maintaining a strong balance within competitive gameplay, and so the rules and mechanics are designed to reward good decisions and punish bad decisions no matter which team you are on.
Player Experience and Controls
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I designed the game to be based around physics as I believe it adds a better feel of impact when a player is hit with a spell. It also keeps things feeling smooth and responsive, which allows the player to feel comfortable within the physics environment and utilize the game’s mechanics as far as they are able to go.
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An important aspect of competitive games is how a player is able to express their skill through game control and tactical decisions. Mage Arena was designed to include snappy movement with features to allow the player to avoid their opponent using their abilities.
Environment and UX
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As the focus should be on the game mechanics itself, the game arena has a very clean and simple design to it without being too plain or boring. I wanted the player to understand that the arena is the focus, and getting knocked out of the arena is a bad thing.
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I found it important to the style of the game that the level environment itself tells all the information you need without relying on UI or other factors. This is why I only included UI elements that are necessary to play the game.
Development Process
My initial design concept began from my primary inspiration (see above) and how I believed I could turn the concept into a game and significantly improve on it to create a fun experience. This led to drawing out and writing down potential ways I could make improvements, including possible themes and features to make a fun but balanced game out of it. I then created a development plan to stick to during the development process.
Starting with the basics
I designed a simplified version of the arena in Unity using primitive objects as placeholders and began working out how the game rules would work in real-time. In this stage I was able to quickly test different ideas on how to make it work.
Deciding on AI for prototype
Early on in my development, I came to the realization that I may run into issues with testing, or my programming abilities within the time frame that I laid out in my development plan. For this reason, I decided that I would create a smaller scale prototype using an AI on one team instead of multiple players on either team. This decision changed a lot of the practical design, but allowed me to work on core features and test other features more quickly.
Creating the game logic
I utilized trigger zones to build the game’s logic and create a fluid experience. These zones move the dividing wall depending on which zone each player is in, which drives the player’s motivation to move the wall forward and overall gameplay. I also added a “kill zone” underneath the arena, which would reset the game and award a point to the victorious player. These zones are not visible in the final game, but they are made understood to the player through other visual cues.
Adding visuals
As I had initially chosen a fantasy theme, I decided to proceed with that decision and found assets that would fit my desired style. I designed the arena to be simple and in line with the theme, and created shaders to represent the different arena sections and the wall that divides them. I wanted to create a wall that was visible, yet not obstructive or distracting.
I also built a small world around the arena to give the game a fleshed out feeling and something more to look at other than an endless void. This also reinforced that getting knocked out of the arena into the water was a bad thing.
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Finally, I added post processing effects to improve the visual quality of the game through color adjustments and depth of field blurring. This helped keep the focus on the arena and made the background less pronounced.
Tech Design
Here are some examples of the code I wrote.
This is an example of what each trigger zone looks like and how I got the zone and wall logic to work. All of the triggers control the flow of the arena with a set of bools to calculate which zones each player is in, which zones need to be taken, and where the middle divider wall is placed.
This shows how I allowed the AI to be knocked back when hit. As the NavMeshAgent does not use physics to move the AI, I had to disable the NavMeshAgent on it and apply the knockback. The AI would be slowed down by physics and I performed a check to see if the velocity was below a certain speed. If so, I would then reenable the NavMeshAgent so the AI could move again.
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