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Freeze Point: Frozen Crag

PRIMARY ROLES

-Lead Game Designer
-Gameplay Designer 
-Level Designer
-Environment Artist

SECONDARY ROLES

-Resource Pack Artist

-Systems Designer 
-Game Balancer

DESCRIPTION

Freeze Point is a mix between the classic Freeze Tag and Hard Point Game Modes with some twists. Teams fight for control over points on the map in order to accumulate score. To do this players must fight off players on the enemy team by freezing them and un-freezing teammates. Along with that, power-ups spawn in dedicated locations around the map and add strategic value to team play and coordination. Points can be contested by enemies which stop score accumulation on the point. Score gained while under a team's control also scales with the number of players on the point up to 3. This game went through a lot of iterations and changes to get where it is, but I'm extremely pleased with how it came out. This was a fun game to design and create. It has become a huge success at our PONG Winter LAN events with over 17 player teams each event.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Led the team from concept to final product.

Designed and planned out the core systems, gameplay features, and gameplay loop. 

Designed the map layout of "Frozen Crag" and built the middle of the map, both team bases, and point C.

Created all custom armor, weapon, and Power-Up textures in the game.

Worked collaboratively in a small scrum style team.

Led game balancing and user experience.

• Came up with the freeze mechanic, designed Power-ups, and determined their placement.

Documented my design and artistic processes.

• Hosted numerous alpha, closed beta, and beta tests.

• Finished Frozen Crag on time for launch at the winter LAN and it has been a fan favorite game ever since. 

Game Design

Concept to Final Product

Challenges

The concept of Freeze Point came from me and some of the other PONG Build Team members as we were planning for our winter LAN event. A lot of us wanted to make Freeze Tag, but each of us had a different idea on how to make it function inside of Minecraft as a main LAN event. 

I pitched a large scale class based Freeze Tag game where 5 control points were objectives both teams had to fight to control in order to accumulate points. This pitch had the control point and class ideas from one of my past pitches "Spire Fight." However, due to limited coders and time we had to scale the game back to 3 points with powerups instead of classes. My class ideas were later used in a future capture the flag game called "Terracotta Canyon."




 

Coming to consensus on how the main objective should work as well as classes and the freeze mechanic took a great deal of time to iron out. This set map design back since it needed to be designed around the gameplay loop and spawn timing. 

Eventually after many map iterations and freeze mechanic changes we ended with the game called Freeze Point on the map called Frozen Crag. It turned out beautifully and really tested our team's design skills.

We decided to reduce the number of capture points from 5 to 3 and make a 3 lane map to better suit the large team sizes. In addition, classes were removed and replaced with Power-ups that spawn around the map. This was done to add game diversity, give greater player agency, and help promote strategy since the freeze mechanic we came up with was a 1 hit freeze. This made fights fairly quick and fast paced. Freeze Point was a fun and challenging game to design, and it turned out amazing. It has been a LAN event favorite since its release.                   

 

Scope and Development Time

Challenges

At the start the scope was fairly small and simple, but it grew quickly as we brainstormed how to turn a simple version of Freeze Tag into a main event game. A lot of our time developing the game was spent on the freeze mechanic, core objective, and map itself. All 3 went through many different iterations and led to the game that we have today. 

During development we went back to the drawing board numerous times on many core aspects of the game. Before classes were removed, we already had a large map in development for the game which was scrapped due to time and class removal. 

There was a lot of back and forth with how the game should play out and how the map should look/feel. This was mainly due to alpha testing that changed our design philosophy because the mechanics were not engaging and the walking distances were too long.

Granted, there was a decent loss of time due to core mechanic alterations, but in the end the project was completed on time with multiple alpha and beta tests under its belt. I always prefer putting forth my best work to make something I am proud of. Sure, it can be a hassle for a team to go back to the drawing board a time or two, but if it makes for a better game then I'd do it every time.

Why Hardpoint?

Challenges

Hardpoint is a game in which two teams fight to control a moving area on a map in order to score points. Having more players on a point increases the number of points acquired by the team every second. The game promotes map exploration, team pushes, and tactical defenses which is why I pitched it to my team when ideating Freeze Point. 

Freeze Tag by nature is fast paced, relies on teamwork, and takes advantage of the environment. This made it the perfect shell for a Hardpoint style objective where both games' core incentives and playstyles blend seamlessly together. 

Hardpoint usually has only one point that changes location around the map every set amount of time. However, that is something we as a team didn't like about the game. I came up with the idea to combine the point mechanic from Hardpoint with another mode commonly referred to as Domination, Control, or Control Point where there are 3 points on a map that players fight to keep under their control in order to score points. This led us to 3 stationary control points which acted similarly to Hardpoint points in which the number of players on a point increased the score of a team every second.

At first it was hard to find an objective to place into the shell of Freeze Tag since its nature is very fast paced. We needed an objective that made freezing players tactical and incentivized team play. This led me to pitch my Control Point idea. The build team and I recently finished a World of Warcraft themed capture the flag game at this time, so capture the flag wasn't something we wanted to do again so soon. The Hardpoint game I knew from Call of Duty stuck in my mind as we brainstormed, and I brought up the idea and it stuck fast.

Making map orientated objectives not only incentivized team play, but it also made a ton of sense with Freeze Tag. It gave the game that FPS style make or break play making potential where players can freeze a whole team on a point for a retake or pick players off slowly. Power-ups only heightened the strategy and team play which had a huge part in leading to the success of the game.