One of the challenges of current mission design is keeping hardcore gamers challenged while accommodating a wide range of skill levels. Some games, including Dark Souls, target the hardcore gamer market exclusively. Bioshock Infinite introduces a "1999" difficulty setting that intends to go back to the previous era of hardcore PC gaming and provide gamers with a higher level of challenge. Unfortunately, only Dark Souls has mission design crafted with hardcore gamers in mind though this makes it less approachable to gamers looking for Easy mode gameplay. Often games are designed in Hard mode and both hardcore gamers and Easy mode gamers get slightly tweaked versions with no new mechanics introduced aimed specifically at them. A potential solution to this problem in RTS is the introduction of supplementary challenges with a very specific purpose: to provide hardcore gamers with another game element to complete that occurs often and allows them to develop pattern-recognition skills that will help them improve at the game itself. Rather than labelling them optional missions that could accidentally entice Easy mode players into attempting them to scratch any completionist itch they might have, the mission should be unheralded and rewarded only with the kills the player amasses during this period. There are many other solutions to this problem, but I am focusing on developing this level with one mechanic in mind with the hope that playtesting will reinforce my hypothesis that the hardcore gamer experience would be improved through the introduction of this mechanic.

To distinguish these optional missions as one specifically built for this purpose, I coined them "diverts" (which is also the name of this project). The following series of pictures illustrates the life cycle of diverts, although it uses common terminology so that it is easy to appreciate the idea by viewing these images alone. 

The example of a divert used in this demonstration is based on MOBA gameplay elements and begins with a large area of effect attack that leaves most units dead except for a slowly retreating and heavily damaged "prize" unit. The destruction of this prize unit should be intrinsically rewarding or provide the player with lots of money or experience, so that they really want to hunt it down. If a similar experience occurs throughout the game with every large area of effect explosion, then diverts could be considered a feature of the strategic combat system rather then an aspect of mission design used in a few instances.

These are the territories displayed in the Company of Heroes 2 World Builder. The centre tower is the point that allows the purple territory to be captured automatically when units are near it. Player-controlled units are entering from the bottom of the screen, where previous gameplay for this mission has occurred. The top green territory has a large number of enemy units, and the player will be overwhelmed at this point of the mission if they attempt to invade.

The threat level is too high for the player to capture the purple territory until they have gained the command points to call down an airstrike on it. An airstrike clears all the infantry, except for the sniper who escapes into the rear garrison. The explosion also damages the tank and hits its engine, slowing its retreat. The front garrison covers its retreat with light machine gun fire.

Once an experienced player has seen a few diverts, they will begin to anticipate these challenges and try to bring their units in immediately after the airstrike or other large area of effect attack to gain a slight advantage. In this case, they have brought one armoured car which, for the purposes of demonstration, has a "Armour Piercing Burst" ability that grants damage bonuses in addition to the "Overdrive" ability which increases the unit speed for a short duration. Overdrive is currently active, allowing the player to bring the armoured car from the base into position to participate in the divert. If Armour Piercing Burst is used at the first chance, then the attack bonuses will allow higher damage throughout the chase. Here, the player is distracted by moving infantry to engage the front garrison and capture the purple territory. Armour Piercing Burst is not activated until the tank has retreated halfway between the two garrisons, and the player is doomed to failure in the divert although the primary objective is completed sooner as a result of moving the infantry immediately.

This is where the player is taught a lesson in the relative strength of units - the kind of lesson that will be valuable to a hardcore player. but would amount to an unexplained failure for most mid-core gamers. The skills gained in this challenge include understanding the risks of chasing a unit into enemy territory and knowing when to abandon the objective and escape. Tuning these diverts must be approached with specific learning objectives appropriate to each mission while keeping a fair progression of difficulty throughout the game. A player who fails a divert should be able to answer the question "why did I not succeed in this mission?" without scouring the internet for walkthroughs and unit details. In addition, punishment can be offset by learning to play defensively allowing good students who do not meet a particular challenge to minimize their losses.

This is the point of no return where the player must decide whether the high risk of entering machine gun range is worth a continually diminishing chance at destroying the prize unit. The variables include the current health of their armoured car and tank, the rate of damage they have been able to inflict on the tank, and the rate of damage that a machine gun does to an armoured car as seen in previous encounters. A skilled player that does not realize the odds are against them must continually assess the situation to assure the safety of their unit. This create a period of highly increased intensity where the player must focus more than they would on other parts of the mission, creating a rush all too familiar to the millions of MOBA players worldwide.

Diverts are intended to accomplish several desirable objectives: engage hardcore gamers even when mission design for the rest of the game is aimed at lower level mid-core gamers, provide learning examples for players to gain practical knowledge that can be supplemented but is not based entirely on checking unit statistics, and provide a rush at key moments of gameplay to get gamers to keep playing new missions until they have completed them all.

In order to prove this concept, I need to develop this map more by diving deeper into the modding community to gain the World Builder skills, Lua/SCAR skills, and CoH2 unit statistics knowledge needed to complete this level. My current design would require a second player to fake the AI of the enemy, but perhaps there are ways around this limitation. In addition, the map is set up as a 1v1 match, which is not available when I log on to the Company of Heroes 2 servers. Hopefully, I will be able to overcome these barriers in the not too distant future and demonstrate the concepts outlined in this post.

Team Canvas:

Matt Church
Jim Dodge
Pietro Esposti
Andrew Nickerson

Overview:
Our goal is to create a multiplayer puzzle game in Unity3D that allows people in different places to solve a puzzle together even though they all can only see one part of the puzzle. There are three players who all see a structure composed of three coloured tetrominos, one of which they can control (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino). Each player also see a unique shadow cast by a light that only they can see, giving them a unique perspective on the puzzle. When the puzzle is solved, the pieces are united in a glowing consensus that spreads across the whole world (cut due to scope). The degree of communication between players is left entirely to whoever decides to participate in the game. This is in keeping with our groups discussions that centred on the idea of isolation that we drew from the GGJ 2014 Theme, and how one must take initiative to take themselves out of the conditions that create the feeling of isolation. Our hope is to develop stronger Unity3D skills, and create puzzles that can be solved.

Since players are familiar with environments that create shadow puppets, and controlling tetris blocks with arrow keys, we decided that solving a multidimensional puzzle as a team would be an adequate challenge. In Canvas, your character is a tetromino that represents a human being with its own objectives. Success, however, does not come from achieving what appears to be the goal in front of you, but from bringing everyone closer to their goals - even when you do not know them.

My role in the creation of Canvas focuses on the creation of art assets, presentation of the game space, and troubleshooting the puzzles created by various members of the team so they are functional. This project would not have been possible without Matt and Andrew's understanding of server code and repositories, or Pietro's familiarity with board games and physical prototyping. Throughout this project, I feel that every one of us contributed equally to design and felt positive about the idea that we helped cultivate. I gained a better understanding of coding for multiplayer games in Unity3D, improved my Maya skills, and thought about aspects of game design that I normally delegate to others including composition, colour palettes, and trying to create a mood using soundtracks and visual design. I definitely recommend trying a Game Jam for the atmosphere, the experience, and exposure to new perspectives and aspects of game design that are not in your current skill set.

Update: See the final product at http://globalgamejam.org/2014/games/canvas and notice that it is no longer a multiplayer game. The previously dependable server code went ballistic on the morning of submission so we adapted our design to get a submission in by the deadline. This is a common outcome of GGJ Projects but should not deter anyone from attempting them!

Turns out this part of the task took less time than expected. I am confident that I could be doing more complicated roads quite soon! I did not even have to export to .fbx - the only hiccup was solved by inverting normals in Maya until they all conformed. I must remember to check that all the normals are the same when I use Mesh Combine to create combined objects in future projects. Despite my original plans to use NURBS, I found it simple enough to Extrude straight to polygons. I was not able to use boolean operations to trim the intersection with this method, and used Interactive Split Tool instead, so I may try NURBS to achieve that effect or do further research on boolean operations involving planes (not solid objects).

Now that I have a racetrack in Unity3D, I can start prototyping a simple racing game. The major challenge I set for myself is done though, so I think I will wrap this up quickly and move on to another project.

The goal for this project is to create curved roads in Maya forming a complete racetrack with textures then export to Unity3Dt to build a simple prototype where a single player rolls their sphere to race against AI spheres. The blockers control intersections as well as narrowing the path at certain points in the racetrack.

Now that the paper plan is finished, I will begin the creation of the track using NURBS. This method involves extruding one curve along another curve to create two separate sections with no overlap, then creating a separate intersection piece to join the two sections in Maya. The blockers will be created entirely in Unity3D and their behaviours will be controlled their using custom scripts. The intersection controllers will be triggers that temporarily disable blockers of the same colour until two of them have been entered and exited.

Thanks to Rupert Morris for showing me the workflow to do this using NURBS, otherwise I would still be scratching my head wondering how to create curved roads in Maya that have simple enough UVs for me to work with.