Responsibilities

Weapon -and Combat Design

Joining the latter end of production, there was not much I could add to the project in terms of gameplay features. So, my focus was mainly on addressing minor issues with combat. Before release I worked out some UX issues with melee combat. After release, I dedicated a large portion of my design work on setting up new weapons for post-release content.

One of my personal goals was to address some issues with the weapon stats. For example, the damage stat, known as “Stopping Power”, is largely meaningless. I worked out suggestions for changes but we couldn’t dedicate manpower to addressing these changes.

Historical Research

I spent a significant chunk of my time on Isonzo on doing historical research. To be able to design gameplay and scenarios, it was most important to understand the context it is placed in.

Doing historical research was also done to collect visual references, eg. photos. This was important for cooperation between Game Designer and Level Designer. The Game Designer, including me, can create a mockup and then point to images references for the Level Designer to use when working out the section of the level.

Level Scenario Prototyping

In coordination with Level Design, I spent time working out a few scenarios for some of the levels for the post-release content updates. I took responsibility for this work so that Level Designer could dedicate their time finishing levels that required finalization or where otherwise delayed.

For this, since we take direct inspiration from historical events, I used google earth to lay out the combat arena and assigned objects and obstacles in accordance with our level layout guidelines. Then these mockups are received by the Level Designer who may reject it of problems are noted.

Wiki Page creation and- Editing

New to game development for me was the creation and use of a Wiki for development. Blackmill uses a rudimentary wiki service. Individual team members were encouraged, or required, to create wiki pages to explain different aspects of the WW1 Series. Among which are:

Iteration cycles
Game content
Build management

QA Support

It was important to participate in the QA process as we couldn’t dedicate the manpower to a full time QA team. For this I participated in internal -and public playtests. Following playtests I would share recordings, bugs and feedback. Most commonly I would share it with our team’s QA. For recording and sharing I used simple screen recording software as the main goal was to inform of the issue, not to provide high detail information on the issue.