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Terracotta Canyon
PRIMARY ROLES
-Lead Game Designer
-Gameplay Designer
-Level Designer
-Environment Artist
SECONDARY ROLES
-Texture Artist
-Systems Designer
-Game Balancer
DESCRIPTION
Terracotta Canyon is a class based Capture the Flag game with Power-ups. The map is set in a wild west like era as two rival bandit camps fight for control. There are a total of 7 unique classes with Minecraft feeling abilities and weapons to aid teams in capturing each other's flag. Located throughout the map are Power-ups that spawn and provide temporary buffs to aid players on both sides. Each team also has access to horses that respawn at stables. Players can use them to traverse the map for a limited time. This map and game was developed by the PONG Minecraft Build Team over a 5 month period.
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 "Terracotta Canyon," built both team bases, the farm side of the map, and the pathways.
• Created all custom class weapons, abilities, and team symbol icons.
• Worked collaboratively in a small scrum style team.
• Led game balancing and user experience.
• Created all class designs, abilities, and the class system itself.
• Documented my design and artistic processes.
• Hosted numerous alpha, closed beta, and beta tests.
• Finished Terracotta Canyon for the September LAN.
YEAR
2022
GENRE
Team based capture the flag with classes and Power-ups
PLATFORM
Made in Java Minecraft for version 1.19 and will soon be published on Minecraft Realms
NOTICE
Due to the nature of active development renaming has occurred during the polish phase. The name of the game has since changed to "Terracotta Chasm" and classes' have been renamed to better fit the western theme.
Game Design
Concept to Final Product
Challenges
The concept of Terracotta Canyon was pitched by me after creating the game Freeze Point on the Frozen Crag map. I pitched a capture the flag game with Classes and Power-ups that felt more Minecrafty.
The build team and I made a Capture the Flag game twice before based off of World of Warcraft's Warsong Gulch which featured more complicated classes to get as close as possible to the actual game. Feedback from that game showed us that there was a desire for a simpler class based capture the flag game and map. The next LAN event coming up was also Wild West themed and that led me to the idea of a Wild West theme.
From my pitch to final product the Capture the Flag mechanics stayed very true to our past game's mechanics. However, class design and class identity changed quite a bit. Some map elements were also adjusted later in development.
I love coming up with fun and unique classes as well as designing maps. However, there were numerous challenges with the limitations of Minecraft as well as conflicting design philosophies which led to this project getting extended.
Minecraft has very limited room for combat expansion and ways of implementing classes. This led to multiple rewrites of class abilities and weapons due to them not being able to be implemented within the game. We also had a lot of conflicting design philosophies at the table which slowed development and led to a lot of imbalance early in Alpha testing. Unfortunately, multiple team members left and didn't complete their assigned jobs. This resulted in the project being pushed back to the summer.
From my initial pitch the map design relatively stayed the same. However, my design sheets for classes were tabled up until summer when the game was reassessed and my designs were then brought to light. Since then my classes have been implemented and balanced accordingly to create the gameplay experience we all wanted for the game.
Scope and Development Time
Challenges
The scope of Terracotta Canyon wasn't too large throughout development. It however suffered from internal issues within the team which delayed its launch and development. Development began during mid term season then spring break. Since we were all college students, this led to progress being slow.
Design philosophy of making classes less complicated came harder to some of our designers than others. This in turn led to classes being more like our previous Capture the Flag game, so we returned to my class design sheets once we got into summer. Once classes were figured out development ramped up fairly quickly during the summer and after multiple closed and open betas Terracotta Canyon launched at our first LAN event of the 2022 school year.
During this project our build team shrank to the smallest I have ever seen it. Due to finals, a lot of map builders left the team. This left more work for me and the remaining 2 builders.
With the constant class changes I had to remake class ability icons numerous times. Our team leader and only coder also took it upon themselves to remove a majority of already completed art which drastically pushed the game back in development. After multiple tests and meetings the game got where it needed to be, but it was an uphill battle for a lot of things. This project was one of the hardest projects to keep on track.
Terracotta Canyon was a 3 month project that turned into a 6 month project. I stepped up during the summer to lead the team in order to complete the project after already completing my assigned jobs 3 months prior. I worked a lot to get the design team on the same page philosophy wise and picked up a lot of builds that needed work on the map to prepare it for open beta testing. All in all, it was a challenging project, but I learned a lot from it.
Making A Capture The Flag Game
Challenges
Capture the Flag in Minecraft fits really well due to already having banners in the game. Strongis, the Build Team leader already made a lot of the flag carrying mechanics for the Warsong Gulch map prior and a lot of the issues were resolved there which made the translation to Terracotta Canyon very smooth.
Designing a Capture the Flag game comes down to a lot about map design and making the environment work well with the objective. Designing a map with the knowledge in mind that areas will be used for attacking, defending, flanking, hiding, running, and so on is very important. I made sure to do this early on when designing the map.
The other half of the equation is classes. Making classes that feel fun and not too specialized makes the mode more accessible for more players and allows for strategy across multiple skill levels.
One of the hardest aspects when designing a Capture the Flag game is how to determine what positive gameplay to promote. Since Capture the Flag is a game about back and forth with attacking and defending it's hard to find a balance between the two where one strategy doesn't overwhelm the meta.
To do this I had to really think through my map design and purposely look at each class's abilities that would be used on the map. This allowed me to better design the game to be around attacking and defending. Bases were designed with many entry points and escape routes while defensive options were located throughout the base, but not specifically in the room where the flag was located.
Soft Player Direction
Challenges
I designed Terracotta Canyon to be very open choice wise with the main goal being to capture the enemy team's flag. I wanted players to have freedom around the map and a choice in their playstyle. I made that very important in my map design. Power-up placement, paths, and distinct openings are ways that allowed me to softly direct players so that they could build strategies and learn the map. I prefer this method since it gives players opritunites to make their own choices and plays while also not feeling like hand holding.
The challenge of guiding players in an open game is that players don't always do what you might expect. One great example of this was done during our early alpha tests with the Fisherman class.
This class was designed to be a mid defender in the river and had extremely fast water movement with Dolphins grace and riptide on a trident. Players started trying to get the flag as a fisherman and then constantly zip around the river so that no one could kill them until they could capture the flag for their team. This strategy was very strong and eventually led us to rework the Fisherman's kit.
Gameplay/Systems Design
Challenges
Gameplay Loop
The main gameplay loop of Terracotta Canyon is to take the enemy team's flag, make it back to your team's base with it, and capture it by right clicking it on your team's flag.
The side loops are fairly open and mainly deal with how players like to strategize and position around the map in order to properly attack and defend bases. From our many Alpha and Beta tests each set of players brought their own strategy and team playstyle which changed how both teams acted and reacted regarding the main gameplay loop.
Making the game not as campy and drawn out was a main goal of ours. The previous World of Warcraft Capture the Flag game was exactly that with very tanky classes and ways to hide out in team bases for very long periods of time. To counter act this, classes had their normal bar of health and lower to middle armor tiers which made combat meaningful and not take forever.
This combination mixed with variable respawn times depending on the player's location when they died helped promote certain play styles. If a player died in their own base respawning was 15 seconds, 10 seconds if they died in the middle of the map, and 5 seconds if they died in the enemy base. This promoted team movement and made camping flag rooms less beneficial.
Challenges
Creating Class Identity
There are 7 unique classes in Terracotta Canyon: Highwayman, Archer, Alchemist, Medic, Fisherman, Combustor, and Thief. Making each class feel unique and effective was a central goal of mine. I wanted classes to have fun playstyles and softly nudge players toward how they can be best used in a team environment.
Medic and Alchemist are the two support style classes with player buffs and heals. However, both are very different in how they play. Alchemist is more of a group buff giver as well as a DoT class with poison and withering. Medic on the other hand is about sustain and group healing. Its passive ability heals players when the medic does damage and their abilities either give players temporary health or a burst of regen. These different playstyles work well to set the classes apart and gives teams strong options depending on how the players and teams want to strategize.
When designing a class I start by looking at purpose and reason why it should exist. Highwayman was our baseline class we started with. When designing it I wanted a real cowboy style class riding into the enemy lines with a little bit of sustain once they got there. This led to me to its passive of having faster horses and its flask ability that gave them strength 1, nausea, and healed for 4 hearts. This made the class feel like a cowboy. From there I wanted a skill testing melee weapon and some form of attack he could do to give him ways to finish off targets at range. I came up with the Highwayman's Hatchet which was a stone axe. It's slow to swing, but does very high damage and with the strength 1 from the flask the Highwayman has the highest DPS in the game, but it was hard to master due to the slow speed and nausea. Next I made the class's other ability a multi shot crossbow on a cooldown to give the class ways to pick off hurt targets, but it didn't have the best accuracy since I didn't want the class to have too good of range potential.
Making 7 unique classes with the given Minecraft mechanics isn't easy to do and balance. Each class has an armor value, core weapon, two abilities, and a passive. I created this class formula to make it easy to design classes and leave it open for new classes in the future. It was also designed this way for simplicity so that each class was very easy to visualize. Players knew what to do when they saw a distinct weapon and two icons. This was a lot simpler than the 5-6 icon system in the World of Warcraft Warsong Gulch Capture the Flag game.
Challenges
Class Balancing
Balancing classes in Terracotta Canyon took a lot of time and testing to get it where it is today. Due to not having class limits, but having mid game class changing makes class balancing harder than it normally is. There are no set class roles either by design. Classes are independently strong to make all classes feel good to play and not be limited by team composition. There are instead soft roles classes can choose to fall under. All classes were designed to be equal in power while having varying strategies and ways to use said power. Archer's passive for example applies resistance to you and nearby teammates when they land a shot. This makes the class have strong defensive capabilities, but also makes attack pushes with them very strong.
Designing for both attack and defense is extremely difficult while keeping classes diverse. To do this I focused on class's armor values, damage potential, and mobility when leveling out characters.
Making classes in any game feel unique and fun as both the player playing the class and the enemy player playing against it is a tough challenge. From my experience in many class based games I really wanted classes to feel fair and not horrible to face against.
When game balancing I always try to keep numbers on a scale so one class/feature doesn't dip too far in one area. I prefer to take my time in design and planning, so that if a mechanic is unexpectedly strong or weak I know exactly where to move things around. Minecraft makes keeping track of and changing values hard or sometimes even impossible due to how certain aspects of it are coded. This posed numerous challenges to me and my team when balancing classes like the Combustor.
The Combustor was my wild west take on the classic explosion based class in many game genres. They used a blazing torch to light players on fire, a medium power firework crossbow to explode enemies at range, and a high damage throwable stick of dynamite to lob at foes. Initially when designing all my classes I wanted each class to have their abilities work well together in some way. Combustor had the built in combo of the firework and the dynamite to do a large amount of burst damage very fast. In testing it was by far the most fan favorite class because it killed very fast. This led to the issue of lowering the classes' burst potential since damage numbers in Minecraft are almost impossible to change effectively for certain mechanics. The dynamite either could do 6 hearts or 3 hearts which would make it drastically worse. In testing it ruined the class for many players. After several iterations we got to a healthier spot where players felt like the damage they did mattered and this was achieved by reducing cooldowns and buffing the passive to apply weakness on hit which made the class less deadly, but more impactful over all.
Challenges
Designing For Scale and Skill
Terracotta Canyon, like our previous Capture the Flag map Warsong Gulch was designed for variable player amounts and skill levels. Terracotta Canyon was specifically designed to be more user friendly in the way classes worked and were designed. Classes only had two abilities, 1 row of health, and a book detailing every single detail about the class in the player's inventory at all times.
Class mechanics and items were designed to be very intuitive. We used vanilla damage numbers for items that worked the same way. Bows worked as bows, tridents were the same damage as tridents, and so on. That way when players picked a class, they saw things they recognized and that made the learning curve that much faster.
Classes were also designed to have a very high skill ceiling and very low entry level. We kept to the core Minecrafty feel so that any player could pick a class and know exactly how to work it. The skillful part came from using the class's kit to its full potential. All classes have some form of built in combo or ways to use the class that would generate value.
Thief is a great skill testing example. The class has the ability to give themselves and people around them speed boosts. The speed boost improves based on the number of teammates near by. Knowing when to use the speed ability at the right moment to get away or help people escape is very skill testing. Its' other ability is to turn invisible temporarily which further extends the already high skill ceiling. I always love designing classes with low entry and high mastery since they make all levels of play fun and rewarding for players.
I've seen games specifically design classes for both high and low skill levels. Personally I do not like this approach. It severely limits player potential and makes for very unfair skill match-ups. Instead I designed my classes to have easy to use mechanics that the player can learn to use more efficiently. This way playing more is rewarded and the entry level still feels approachable. That being said it took me a lot of testing and redesigns to make abilities and classes feel that way.
Combustor was a class that in early Alpha testing posed to be a real issue scale and skill wise since the entry level was low and the ceiling was also low. This made the class very linear and led to the class dominating early in testing. Since then the skill ceiling has been raised and its damage numbers have been tuned so that a team full of combustors doesn't wipe out everything in their path.
The Highwayman had a similar issue with scale since team horses spawned on a timer and originally the number of players could make it so horses were hardly ever available. Highwayman's whole passive is based around horses which posed a problem. To fix this we changed horse spawns to scale with player count so that at higher player counts the highwayman class was not inadvertently nerfed due to not having horses.
Level Design
Map Layout
Challenges
I designed the map of Terracotta Canyon. It's a two team Capture the Flag map with 3 lanes leading from team's bases to a central town location. Both team bases are symmetrical, but have block palette changes that give each base its' own style and theme.
Team bases are the highest points on the map and all terrain slopes downward toward the central city with a river running through it that cuts the map in half. Each of the 3 lanes that stem from the team's bases lead to 1 of the 3 bridges across the river. On one side of the map there is a large train on tracks and the other is a massive farm with a dam. These areas act as map borders and are key callouts when giving player locations.
I designed the map this way to incentivize combat in the middle of the map as well as key lanes. Due to the lanes not being hard set it allows for a very open style map to promote horse mobility and usefulness. The height change helps establish importance and gives me room to make bases more complex with many internal routes to get in and out of flag rooms.
Designing a Capture the Flag map has a lot of challenges one of them being timing. I made sure that walking speed for both players, horses, and Highwaymen (A class that gets faster horses) all felt smooth. A huge turn off for objective modes are the travel time and time in and out of combat. I wanted players to feel engaged throughout, but not to the point where killing players felt like it didn't buy any time.
I am a huge fan of reverse symmetry in map design due to the way it makes similar feeling areas feel unique as well as balances out maps while also having different looking terrain. That being said, team bases in Terracotta Canyon have respawn zones located midway up their team's base. These areas are not centralized in the bases and one lane from the base passes by this zone. This makes leaving or entering though that lane into an enemy base much more risky and difficult.
The bases being reversely symmetrical means that one side of the map is always harder to enter from. To balance this out I made adjustments to the lanes in bases so that the lane that passed by the respawn zone could not be entered from the respawn zone. Along with that I made it so that lane connected to the center of the base quicker to give entering and retreating players more ways of escape. These changes still kept the bases symmetrical, but prevented respawn zones from interfering with lane mechanics and in fact led to more lane and playstyle diversity.
Base Design
Challenges
I did many drafts of the team bases and made sure to make multiple small scale and large scale models before creating them in full scale. Both of the team's bases are the same layout for the sake of balance. The base layout is where the 3 core lanes in the map stem from. There are 3 main entrances to each base and each lane links to the base's central "Camp" area which leads directly to the flag room.
There are 4 possible entrances to the flag room; they are 3 lanes and one top entrance located where each team starts the game. This design choice was done to give many points of entry and many defense options for players. These lanes are also winding and can be varying widths. Having varying styles of routes and many ways to interconnect within the base allows for a lot of team work and base defense strategy while also leaving room for clever and coordinated attacks. I wanted bases to have a very drastic shift in terrain from the dessert in the middle of the map to these massive structures in the canyon walls. The bases are built into the canyon walls and make use of varying heights to really give a back and forth feel in a team fight.
The height changes in the map gives players a rush as they storm the entrances and navigate the enemy base. It also makes for very daring escapes and chases as players jump off cliffs and hide out in tents on the lower levels of the base.
Making sure each route felt unique and worth taking is something I considered every step during designing and building. When designing objectives like Capture the Flag I always look at the gameplay and what environments best suit it. This led me to designing the flag room as a fairly small room with many narrow entrances. This made defending the flag in the room very risky and made attacking very hands on and skillful since the attacking team was quite literally pushing the defending team into a corner. I love this design since it supports the gameplay style of base defense from multiple areas and deincentivizes camping strategies.
A main challenge I faced throughout designing team bases was making space matter. The bases had to be large to work with the upper bounds of the player count, but also had to feel good with fewer players. To solve this puzzle I opted to make bases have varying elevations at points to add height into player's strategy books.
Having different elevations allowed me to make areas more unique and made dedicated areas which would draw a lot of team fights. The main "Camp" area for example is a big open room where, for the first time, all lanes converge just before the flag room. I made this room very open to accommodate for higher player counts, but also had obstacles and still some terrain elevation to add more defensive options for players. This area, like all my areas in the map were made with classes in mind. Each class had some way of utilizing the environment to their advantage which made team fights much more memorable and tactical. I always love maps and environments that feel tailored to the players and its something I make a point to do in my games.
Tactical Terrain and Mobility
Challenges
Making environments useful and tactical is important in games where mechanics are in place that rely on it. In Terracotta Canyon capturing the enemy flag is the central mission and how players do it is up to them.
Classes provide a wide range of useful mechanics to do this and making sure each class feels like it works with its environment is vital to class success. I did this by closely working through many elements of my map design. I thought about height advantages, pathways, lanes, cover, inclines, coke points, hiding points, and plenty more.
Making beautiful and tactical environments is always a challenge, but it's one of my favorite kinds to solve. A big issue in making terrain useful and useable is objectives. This might sounds crazy since Capture the Flag is an objective based game. However, having one central goal that is on the other side of a map causes many issues design wise.
Many people might not always be aware of this, but a core issue is incentive. Since the flag is the main goal, it inadvertently makes all other locations without it less beneficial. This means that there has to be other elements in the map that gave players incentive to go there. To do this I designed advantageous terrain elements to better hold areas, Power-ups to act as micro rewards to divert attention and create core areas to control over as a team. These methods still keep the core objective alive and well, but makes the game feel much more alive and deep since it puts a value on things players don't normally think about.
For example, one team controlling all bridge access makes horses highly efficient for that team. Controlling the speed Power-ups by base exits makes enemy escapes much harder. These seemingly small tactically placed map elements drastically effect gameplay and make games much more interesting in general. Doing this effectively takes a lot of testing and planning. Of which I did plenty of and I am extremely happy with the results in Terracotta Canyon.
Power-Up Locations
Challenges
Power-ups were designed into the game to act as soft goals for players and to diversify gameplay. Their purpose was to incentivize moving around the map and going to some areas not directly near the central goal of the enemy team's flag. Each Power-up location spawns a specific Power-up on a timer. This was done to make certain areas key points to hold as well as making the map easier to learn.
The town in Terracotta Canyon is the middle of the map. It's an important area to control when engaging in team fights due to its central location. Multiple Power-ups are located around the town that give Jump boost so that players can take high ground on roof tops. This gives players a defensive advantage and promotes team fights as well as bridge control.
Another example of Power-up location impacting gameplay is outside of the bases on the far lanes of the map. Near the exits of both bases are speed boost Power-ups which are key for players running away with the flag as well as for the base's team to get in their base faster to defend.
Deciding where to prioritize gameplay moments and the type of interactions we wanted to see took a lot of careful planning and map designing. We didn't want Power-ups to become areas to camp, but instead areas to have under control. We did this by making the respawn of the Power-ups different depending on where it was and what Power-up it was.
For example, Resistance was a powerful Power-up located in two different places in both team's bases. It was decided to be placed there to aid defenders as well as attackers as they try to escape with the flag. However, it being in team's bases inadvertently incentivizes camping. To counter act this we made sure the two locations were not near the flag room and their duration of the effect and its respawn time didn't allow for oppressive play.
Art Assets
Terracotta Canyon Assets
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the live game. Art wise I was responsible for creating Both Team Bases, The Farm, The Dam, Class Weapons, Class Abilities, and the Resource Pack Textures.
More examples of my work on Terracotta Canyon can be found on the Terracotta Canyon Artwork Page in the Art Gallery shown below. There I walk through my processes and challenges when designing artwork for the game.
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