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Hedge Legends
PRIMARY ROLES
-Lead Game Designer
-Level Designer
-Environment Artist
SECONDARY ROLES
-Gameplay Designer
-Systems Designer
-Game Balancer
DESCRIPTION
Hedge Legends is a unique team based boss fighting game mode my build team and I made over a 6 month period to be one of our LAN event spotlight games. It was designed to by played with varying amounts of players and can support up to 24 players with 3 players per team. Hedge Legends is about finding and looting chests, fighting other teams, buying items at shops, solving puzzles, and most importantly killing bosses. The goal of Hedge Legends is to be the first team to place all 4 unique boss heads on your team's pedestals to win the game.
RESPONSIBILITIES
• Led the project from concept to final product.
• Designed and planned out the core Systems, gameplay features, and gameplay loop.
• Designed the map layout, module layout, lobby layout, and built 98% of all of them.
• Led game balancing and user experience.
• Designed the loot table, monster spawn, team progression, and shop systems.
• Worked collaboratively in a small scrum style team.
• Hosted numerous alpha, closed beta, and beta tests.
• Documented my design and artistic processes.
• Created the module framework and worked hands on with the team to create assets in an organized manor.
• Finished Hedge Legends on time to be the main attraction at our fall 2021 LAN.
YEAR
2021
GENRE
Team Based PVP, Looting, Strategy, and Boss Fighting
PLATFORM
Made in Java Minecraft for version 1.18.2 and 1.19.x and is available for download on Planet Minecraft
Game Design
Concept to Final Product
Challenges
The concept of Hedge Legends was originally pitched from one of my fellow build team members that went by the name Chief. His pitch for Hedge Legends was a changing maze that had areas to find loot and ender eyes which led to the goal to finish an End portal in order to escape and win.
The build team and I liked the concept, but the gameplay loop was way too short and it was for a very small group of people which wouldn't work for our large LAN events. The more we investigated the gameplay loop and pitch we found glaring balance and progression issues we had to overhaul.
Eventually, I took on the role of lead designer on the Hedge Legends Project. I expanded the idea from the pitch and carefully designed not only the map, but 77 out of the 81 modules, the gameplay loop, and the loot tables as well.
By our first beta tests our players loved the game. At launch we had almost double the expected players at the event wanting to play. It was the largest Minecraft event turnout in the PONG Organization's history. We now host Hedge Legends at almost every LAN event since its launch. It gives me great pride and joy knowing our work brings so much happiness.
Making Hedge Legends had its own challenges from start to finish. One key issue was project management. The previous project lead, Chief, stepped away from the project 1/4 of the way through development and a lot of our builders struggled to keep the project afloat which set us back in development.
I stepped up as the project lead to work with our team to redesign the game as well as design and build the map. It took 6 months to design and build the map. I was in college full time at the time and I worked through my spring semester all the way into the fall semester so that it would be done on time for our PONG Fall LAN event.
There were many design puzzles with how the game should play out. This took a while to solve and led to many talks about design philosophy within the team. Thankfully I did my best to find the middle ground so that we could create the experience we all wanted and strived for at the end of the day. I can't be happier with how Hedge Legends came out! It was a bumpy road, but in the end I see Hedge Legends as one of my favorite projects.
Scope and Development Time
Challenges
Hedge Legends was designed and built in a 6 month period. It launched at the Fall 2021 LAN at UW-Stout as the main event for the LAN.
Hedge Legends was the biggest and most ambitious project the PONG Minecraft Build Team has ever undertaken. The scope started small at pitch, but grew fairly quickly once we started designing the core aspects of the game.
Hedge Legends is a massive maze designed in square sections which I call modules. Each module is separated by leafy walls. These modules have many types and block palettes depending on the Quadrant in which they are located. In total there are 81, unique 20x20 block modules separated by hedge walls 3-5 blocks thick.
The time I had to make Hedge Legends wasn't too short, but I was mainly the only one working on the project due to team issues at the time. This made the process take a lot longer since I was also in college and working a part time job.
Due to the sheer scale for the game and the way I had to adapt the pitch drastically, Hedge Legends became a large project fairly quickly. That being said I worked smart and decided on my module plan early which made it easy to build on. I triple checked my maze map design and made countless mockups for room layouts and room types. Then I made a whole scale map layout with backup copies just in case. From there I color coded each module type and designated areas in which the team could build modules off to the side with wall layouts in place to plan for entry points into the rooms.
Making the map took up most of my time, but I spent a lot of my other time planning loot tables for chests as well as creatures that spawn and shop prices. Thankfully some of my other teammates handled making the boss mechanics. It was definitely our largest and most intensive project. It turned out great gameplay, balance, and aesthetic wise.
What Is Hedge Legends?
Challenges
Hedge Legends is a team based boss rush game. The map is a large maze themed into 4 Quadrants: Nether, Frost, Forest, and End each with their own respective bosses. Each of these Quadrants contain unique modules which hold loot, puzzles, creatures, and more that the players must explore and fight in. At max capacity Hedge Legends can hold up to 8 teams of 3 for a max of 24 players a game.
The goal in Hedge Legends is to collect all of the 4 different bosses' heads and have them placed on their team's pedestals to win. To do this players must loot the maze, fight off other teams, collect gold nuggets by killing creatures, and buy boss summoning relics which are sold at every shop in the middle of the map. Boss summoning relics are then used at Quadrant boss altars located in special modules deeper in the maze to summon a Quadrant's boss. From there players must defeat all 4 bosses and place their heads on their team's pedestals to be declared the Hedge Legends.
Designing a team based boss rush game is notoriously hard to balance, but I believe I managed to do so. The game came a long way from its pitch. A core issue with the pitch was that it was for an 8 minute game for 4 players. We needed a 40 minute or more game that could hold around 20 people at a time. This led to ideas of having unique boss fights and Quadrants which made us re-think the End portal win condition. Players also could farm one boss and finish the game without moving around the map. The change from an 8 minute looting mini game to a full 40 minute boss rush strategy game forever changed the game and led to what it is today.
The idea of shops came from my idea to have creatures spawning around the map to act as hazards and give players a resource they could use to aid their team. Shops were made to be a way to combat the randomness of chest loot tables and improve player experience since players are in control of their gold supply and what they buy. Giving players incentive to kill creatures by having them drop gold also let me implement a mechanic where players could enchant and combine books and gear mid game with the levels players collect. This is one of my favorite mechanics and leads to a lot of strategy and teamwork. Commonly, players would save up lapis and get levels so they can enchant in the middle areas. However, it's high risk since it puts them in a vulnerable position and this leads teams to group up and look out for one another which further promotes team play and team fights.
Strategic Gameplay
Challenges
I really wanted to make Hedge Legends the ultimate strategy game where what players did, mattered without being super punishing. Respawning is enabled on a cooldown, there is hunger, day night cycle in enabled, each team had 2 ender chest in their spawn, shops sell many usefully items and Quadrant specific items. Gold nuggets are either dropped by creatures or found in chests, and much much more.
I've thought of a ton of fun strategies and some of our beta testers found so many more. One strategy I saw our beta testers use was to save gold and buy invisibility potions once they had all of the boss heads. They then gave each teammate a head, took off all their gear, and ran to the center to place their heads all at once. This strategy avoided a lot of conflict and an item called the HEAD JACK. This item could only be bought from a shop once for a hefty price and it is used to remove a head from another team's pedestal. This was a really clever strategy and each game we played, players would keep finding new ways to play.
There is so many different ways teams play and none are wrong. I loved balancing these mechanics and took my time which was challenging, but in the end Hedge Legend became a really fun game because of it.
It was hard to design things that matter in a large scale team game. Loot tables did a lot to help alleviate this and allowed for me to design puzzle rooms to be a main focus for teams since many required teamwork and gave high tier loot, access to an enchanter and anvil, and more as a result.
Another issue I had to solve was what we called the "Loot Crisis" where once chests are looted it's hard for teams that got killed to come back. For that reason I made shops sell iron gear as well as good resources which meant that players could farm gold to gear up at any point in the game. There was also an armor upgrade system in the game where the armor a team spawns in with upgrades a tier after a certain amount of time has passed. Players by default spawn with apples, a wooden sword, and leather armor. Their armor, weapon, food, and sword also get upgraded the later in the game they are so death isn't make or break.
The other challenge was about boss fighting. It was easier to steal a boss head and kill players that summoned a boss which disincentivised summoning bosses. To solve this we implemented that the team that summoned the boss got resistance for a period in the boss room which made rushing a team in the room harder and made boss fights as a whole more strategic.
Gameplay/Systems Design
Challenges
Gameplay Loop
The gameplay loop of Hedge Legends starts with module looting, collecting gold nuggets, and taking out nearby teams to become more well equipped to start fighting bosses. From there teams want to go to one of the 4 general shops in the middle of the map and buy a boss summoning relic to be used at any Quadrant boss's altar. Then they defeat the boss and take its head. This is the core loop I designed Hedge Legends around. However, It was made to be flexible and open to player agency and push teams to play their way.
It's up to the players to strategize and work their way through the game. Some players want to do more puzzle rooms for higher tier loot by either completing shrines, solving puzzles for chests, or unlocking access to an enchanting table. While other teams might want to farm coins to gear up from shops. There are also some teams that want to hunt teams or try to steal the boss head from other teams. This makes every game of Hedge Legends exciting and entertaining for all teams involved. The amount of player agency I designed Hedge Legends around was massive in order to make the game not only fun to play at low and high levels, but also to make it highly replayable.
Making a game so open and strategic definitely had its challenges. Due to Hedge Legends being such a unique game some players got confused about what to do at the start of the game. From this feedback we created a short informative cut scene at the start of the game where it points out key game mechanics and the main win condition. This made it a lot easier to help newer players and it got everyone on the same page.
Giving value to certain actions and guiding players was a hard puzzle to solve. I commonly ran into issues with "Why should players want to do this?" Puzzle rooms are a great example of this. There are 4 different puzzle modules in each of the 4 Quadrants. They are Parkour, Complete The Shrine, Double Pressure Plate, and Target. Puzzles are designed to be cooperative or skill testing rooms where it takes time in the module to earn a reward. To make puzzles worth it I made each puzzle room highly profitable in a risk vs reward style. It takes time to complete and leaves you vulnerable while you complete it. However, the rewards from puzzle rooms are great. Double Pressure Plate Puzzles unlock enchanting and anvil usage. Shrines reward players the highest tier gear for turning in set items. Parkour and Target Puzzles hold high tier loot.
Originally Puzzle rooms only gave high tier loot, but through beta testing I learned that they were too easy to achieve and sometimes not worth the hassle. That is when I made the decision to upgrade their loot pool and add more variation to puzzle room loot/rewards. Since the change Puzzle rooms have served their intended purpose and are fun key parts of the map that teams take into account when strategizing.
Challenges
Boss Fights
Hedge Legends boss fights are core to the game. Each boss room is marked with a color coordinated beacon beam in the sky that matches the Quadrant that it is in. The 4 bosses are Hallow Skull (Frost), Mordath (End), Deathmire (Nether), and Tarsus (Forest). Each has their own set of boss moves, AI, and health pools. Each boss module is near the center of the map and the bosses cannot leave their 4 module wide areas around their altar.
Hallow Skull is a Stray that shoots a bow that applies slowness on hit as he runs around. He also has a Barrage attack that can deal massive damage to the player he's targeting. Shields are best for fighting him, and he is considered the weakest boss out of the 4. However, this boss leaves the team fighting him the most vulnerable since he slows players and can do massive damage if a player is caught off guard.
Mordath is a Vindicator that has an iron axe and after taking a certain amount of damage, he splits into bats that eventually turn into more Vindicators as he hides among them. Splash potions of harming are great against him since the Vindicators he summons have only 1 health and the potion helps find the true boss. However, that being said Mordath is considered one of the hardest bosses to fight due to the damage his clones do, and the fact that they disable shields.
Deathmire is a Wither Skeleton riding a Zombie that shoots Wither skulls and applies wither on touch. Ranged attacks and fire resistance are best when fighting Deathmire due to his lava filled modules. That being said, his damage output is high and his location makes it hard to fight on if you are not geared up properly.
Tarsus is a Husk that deals a lot of close range damage and does a large jump attack that explodes where he lands. Having enchanted armor is great against explosions, and since he's undead, splash healing potions damage him when you heal yourself. Given that, Tarsus is still a tough boss to defeat.
Balancing all 4 bosses for a large team based game was difficult at times and some bosses were toned down as a result during development. We as a team agreed that bosses should be fought when you and your team have around full Iron armor or better depending on the boss. This was done to keep boss fights strong and challenging, but not frustrating and grindy.
Bosses have a special loot table they all pull from when dying. As a result, they drop some of the highest tier gear in the game. Some items that can drop are high level enchanted books, tridents, and diamond armor/weapons. This makes killing bosses rewarding and also gives players the ability to get high level gear late game once puzzle rooms are fully looted.
There were some needed and impactful changes done throughout development for bosses. At first bosses were not locked into their 4 module range that they are now. Before that it led to multiple situations of cheesing fights and bosses spawn camping teams.
Boss rooms originally were not marked by beacons and were meant to be found by players through exploring. However, through playtesting it was discovered that this made it difficult to complete the core objective and beacons were added to aid players and act as landmarks.
The Nether boss Deathmire also was originally supposed to be a Wither Skeleton riding another Wither Skeleton. Due to pathing AI issues caused by Wither Skeletons in this version of the game we had to change the lower half to a zombie in order to achieve the challenging boss fight we wanted.
Challenges
Loot Tables
Loot tables in Hedge Legends are made module by module and vary in item quality. The main loot tables related to the module type were: Normal, Loot, and Puzzle. Normal modules held low to mid tier gear, food, and useful items. Loot modules held mid to higher tier gear, food, and useful items, and puzzle rooms held high tier loot with a mix of some gold nuggets, and lapis as well.
Bosses had their own set of loot they dropped which were the highest rarity. Some items dropped by them were only able to be obtained by them such as max level books and tridents.
Shrines were a type of puzzle room that required players to place specific items in it in order to receive the item above the shrine. Each shrine required collecting items of a same type. For example, for the axe shrine you must collect the 5 different rarities of axes displayed. This gave players goals and made players want to keep looting and searching so they could complete the shrine. There is a sword, axe, helmet, and food shrine. The sword and axe you would receive would be netherite, the helmet would be a turtle helmet that gave resistance, and the food would be an enchanted golden apple. There was only 1 shrine per quadrant and once a shrine is completed it cannot be used again.
I planned out loot tables using excel sheets. For each loot table I mapped out item drops, rarity, and the quantity of said items. I enjoyed this part a lot and took great care carefully making each loot table so that each rarity of chest has certain items players would want to loot from them. For example, arrows are common in normal module chests and would be a goal for players to loot if they were running low. Shields are also a very useful item and are found rarely in normal chests, but are more common in loot modules.
Normal modules have bows, arrows, crossbows, a little gold, lower tier food, and chain and gold gear as well as stone weapons. Loot modules have gold nuggets, lapis, enchanted books, potions, medium tier food, and iron weapons and armor. Puzzle rooms have tipped arrows, higher level enchanted books, gold nuggets, high tier food, and diamond weapons and armor.
Determining how loot tables should vary was a design puzzle for sure. What items should spawn where due to how they effect gameplay at certain stages was something I followed very carefully. One issue that came up in testing was that lapis used to only generate in puzzle modules which are very sparse and this made enchanting less viable. Since then I added lapis to all general shops and added them in the loot module loot table to make enchanting more accessible. Due to this change, enchanting became a strategic mechanic like I originally wanted.
Challenges
Shops in a PVP Game
Shops in Hedge Legends are vital to the game and are very useful at numerous parts of the game. There are two types of shops, General shops which are in each shop module, and the Quadrant shop which sells specific items depending what Quadrant the shop module is in. All shops sell items for gold nuggets that are either dropped from creatures or are found in chests.
General shops sell boss summoning relics, Head Jacks, food, arrows, lapis, health potions, and iron weapons and armor. This is done to help aid the randomness of loot tables to give players agency and help them gear up. It is also done to make sure loot is always available throughout a game and that there are no loot shortages.
Quadrant shops sells specific potions, enchanted books, and tipped arrows relating to the Quadrant they are in. For example, the Nether shop sells fires resistance potions and fire aspect 2 books. Quadrant shops are designed to give additional choices to players and nudge them to strategize by presenting them with short term goals they might want to pursue. For example, a player might see a looting book at a Quadrant shop and want to save up so they can buy it and farm gold nuggets to gear their team up faster. The Quadrant shops also act as perfect mechanism to add fun items outside of the randomness of loot tables. By them being purchasable, it makes encounters feel more in players control and leads to exciting and diverse team fights every game.
As far as challenges go while creating the shops, not much got in the way or stood out too much. However, there was one thing we as team decided to change after some beta testing.
Boss summoning relics used to cost 64 gold nuggets to buy, but Head Jacks used to cost 96 gold nuggets. This led to bosses being summoned too quickly for the game time we were aiming for. Due to the price of Head Jacks being so low players would buy Head Jacks instead of boss relics and immediately remove heads players place down. Due to this we made boss summoning relics cost 96 gold nuggets and made Head Jacks 128 gold nuggets. Plus, we made each general store sell only 1 Head Jack which meant there were only 4 available to be purchased during a game. This greatly benefited the game and made the gameplay loop fit our goal of 40 minutes while still having Head Jacks be a strategic catch up mechanism.
Level Design
Map Layout
Challenges
The Hedge Legends Map was made very tactically to make it an equal experience for everyone of the 8 teams. The map is 9 by 9 module square with 3 block gaps between modules to act as walls and pathways. Each module is 20 by 20 blocks.
There are 8 spawn modules, 1 for each team where players spawn and respawn when they die. Shops are located in the center areas of the map in each of the 4 Quadrants. Puzzle rooms are arranged in a circular fashion around the map varying in module type. Modules commonly alternate between normal and fight rooms around the outer ring of the map. loot rooms tend to be in dead end areas to make up for time it takes to get to them. Boss modules are located within 2 by 2 module areas near the enter of the map marked by beacon beams matching the Quadrant they are in.
I designed the map with a lot of reverse symmetry to make the map both balanced and still interesting to navigate. This allowed me to better place module types and plan for pathways. The unique shape I created makes it an ideal 8 team map. By having each spawn have the same number of modules and module types to go through to reach numerous key map points such as puzzle rooms it makes it balanced and still entertaining to navigate through.
Designing the map and module layout took a lot of careful planning and time. I did multiple scale models and drew many paper maps to illustrate my vision. The challenge came at points where I had to translate mazes into blocks and it was difficult to transfer at first, but my module method helped make the process a lot smoother.
I made the map as a giant grid at first when laying it out and made color coded modules to fill with rooms and Quadrant based terrain on the side so that I could use world edit to move it into the map later on. This made it a lot easier to visualize and work on.
The sheer size of the map is why it took me so long to create. I timed walking through the map and did multiple measurements to make sure the map travel time fit the gameplay loop we wanted.
Each of the 81 modules is unique and hand crafted which is why it took a long time to perfect. Each module has varying terrain and structures designed to make combat more entertaining, but not too in depth. I wanted the core focus on the gameplay, but I still wanted to tell a background story that kept the players interested as they explore and loot. It was a difficult and fun design puzzle to solve. All in all, I loved designing this map and game.
Module Design
Challenges
Hedge Legends was designed using a gridded module system where large maze rooms were separately created and placed according to their function.
Modules types include: Fight, Normal, Loot, Puzzle, Shop, Boss, Spawn, and Center. Each module has specific mechanics in them as well as unique loot tables. Each module type also has varying level design depending on which module type it is.
Normal modules are usually more flat and chests are very visible. It was designed in that way since normal rooms span a long alternating ring around the outer maze and are meant to be places players loot early on in the game.
Loot modules are more complicated terrain wise and tend to have their chests be more hidden. This was done since loot rooms hold medium tier gear and higher numbers of chest spawns. They are commonly located in dead end areas in the maze further away from player spawns in order to promote exploration and mid game looting.
Fight modules are also fairly flat, but commonly have small rooms creatures spawn from. They contain low to medium tier gear and constantly spawn creatures on a set timer if no creatures are in their module already.
Puzzle modules have 4 types of puzzles: Parkour, Target, Pressure Plate, and Shrine. These modules vary in level design from type to type, but each type has a distinct layout that is identifiable across multiple Quadrants themes.
Boss modules are designed to take up a large amount of the module space and have terrain that reflects the boss that can be summoned there. The boss modules are designed with height unlike the other modules. They promote players to engage in the environment when fighting the boss. Each Quadrant type is also designed to have 1 hazard block that players would see throughout the Quadrant either in the walls or in modules themselves. Boss rooms have a lot of hazards, so boss fight positioning matters. Making boss module terrain tactical and position based was done to make the boss fights more engaging and lead to team fights in boss modules being much more exciting.
Making 81 unique modules was very time consuming, but I put a ton of thought into how each and every module was designed and how each one fit together on the map.
There wasn't much challenge designing modules, but one point was a common issue within the build team. I designed the modules to have connecting pathways that go throughout the map. However, some build team members did not like this feature and would not state why. I decided to add pathways to guide players a bit in modules and remove the grid feeling from the map by having the paths blend together. It was also done to give more visual sense of what Quadrant players are in by what ground blocks make up the pathway. I believe this criticism came from the idea that this was a maze themed map, and that pathways did not fit that experience. That being said pathways within game design help softly lead players and do not remove the maze feel.
One fun experience that came from alpha testing was ender chests in spawn modules. During our first alpha test, players did not have chests in their spawn room to store loot. Quickly players began to store loot in empty chests in modules near their spawn for later. This led to players raiding spawns and was something we didn't want as a main part of the game. That led us to ender chests since other players could not steal another player's loot and it also disincentivised spawn raiding. This in turn led to players making loot runs back to base to store loot. However, it also created a new archetype of strategy where players store their boss heads in ender chests and then place multiple heads at once. This was an unexpected strategy at the time and the gameplay and counter play created from it late game was something we as a team loved to see and decided to keep in the game.
Quadrants
Challenges
Quadrant designs share a lot of similarity, but clearly have their own themes and stories woven into what they contain. When designing bosses we decided we wanted different environments for them to call their domain which led us to the idea of Quadrants. I really wanted to keep that Minecrafty feel in the game and made modules to reflect the Quadrants in an upgraded vanilla feel.
We decided on Nether, End, Forest, and Frost as our Quadrant types. That range allowed me to use a large variety of block types in the map and make areas very distinct from one another. The core colors of Blue, Green, Purple, and Red of each Quadrant made them distinct at a glance which helped visually aid players exploring the map.
Making a map where very different looking Quadrants eventually merged into one another took a lot of time and blending. Since I made the maze out of square modules of a set size separated by 3 block thick walls it meant that blending would have to occur within the 3 block pathways separating modules. I knew I didn't want to make half Quadrant modules, so pathways worked as the perfect blending tool. The hedge walls also have their own palettes and leaf type specific to their Quadrant. By having pathways separate Quadrants it make the hedge walls make that separation even more clear as well as acting as a landmark in the map that players can use for directions. That being said, it did take a long time to hand blend a specific set of pathways blocks throughout the map, but I am more than happy with the result.
Creating Unique Environments
Challenges
Making a maze have landmarks some might say is a downside. However, due to the gameplay style of Hedge Legends land marks help make the map feel exciting and help aid new and returning players to navigate without maps.
When making Hedge Legends I really wanted to make each module have its own life. Knowing that I deliberately made my module terrain where it can be used tactically in team fights. I made clever back exits, parkour areas, and more to add to the level of strategy and replayability while having it feel natural and not overwhelming to new players.
Due to how the map is laid out each Quadrant is very similar layout wise. Given that I made sure to make each module very unique block palette and design wise so that players would never feel like the map feels the same all around.
Making each module completely different wasn't too hard, but it wasn't easy either. It takes time and effort to make one well designed module. When making 1 module I look at: module layout, block palettes, structures, loot locations, core pathways, possible creature spawns, strategic terrain, near by modules, the same module type in other Quadrants, player experience, walkability, team fight scenarios, and over all feel.
I always take great care and pride in what I do. I never want to deliver sub par work. That meant if I had to become the project lead, work on this project while attending college and a part time job, as well as taking 6 months to complete it I'd do it, and I did. Producing the game the way it was meant to be is worth the time and effort. I love designing games and all the thought that goes into it.
Hedge Legends Assets
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the live game. Art wise I was responsible for creating the map and the lobby.
More examples of my work on Hedge Legends can be found on the Hedge Legends Artwork Page in the Art Gallery shown below. There I walk through my processes and challenges when designing artwork for the game.
Art Assets
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