Role: Match Engine Lead
My role on this project was to ensure that the core gameplay, everything from controls to camera, was working well. I joined the project part way through in development and so had to quickly get up to speed on the direction and the state of the game. I noticed key areas that I felt could be improved in game feel and camera then worked on those as a priority. I then expanded out to cover more areas including the player abilities and working to improve the opposition AI.

For Speedball, two cameras were needed. An “end to end” camera that looked up the arena and a side on camera more similar to what’s found in Fifa etc. Both presented unique challenges.
The “end to end” camera was often cutting off important gameplay, especially along the bottom edge of the screen. To resolve this I designed a dynamic system that used the state of the game, who was in possession etc, to adjust the camera’s tracking to show what was relevant and important.
The side to side camera had issues with depth perception at a distance, notably knowing quickly if players were nearer or further away. The solution to this was to have the camera increase in height the further the action was from the camera, causing a clearer birds eye view to allow player’s relative positioning to really stand out.

My guiding principal when working on the character controller was continuity of movement. I focused on removing any and all pauses in the player movement for jumps, dashes and dives. The intentional contrast to this was tackles and hits where we added hit stop and screen shake to really sell the impact.

Key Responsibilities:

Designing and co-implementing the cameras

Polishing and improving the character controllers

Working with animation and VFX on game feel

Designing and co-implementing multiple systems such as shooting

Working on and providing feedback on the player AI

Role: Designer

I was brought on to Worms Rumble late in development and my two largest contributions were in designing an arena for post launch support and redesigning the gamepad sensitivity.

For the arena design, I noticed the gameplay felt like a platform fighter such as Smash Bros, so I looked at individual areas as though they were Smash stages, thinking about how battles would flow around the platforms. I then took that approach of flow to the overall arena design, keeping a smooth path that guides players around the larger arena in loops to keep up the high pace of the game and encourage exploration of the entire arena.

I wasn’t happy with the initial implementation for sensitivity as it was functionally just slowing down the aiming. This resulted in player’s being at a disadvantage if they used aim assist. What I instead did was broke down the aiming into two areas: small movements and big movements. Small movements are the ones where sensitivity really helps people to steady their aim. So when moving small amounts, it would move slowly, allowing players to make fine adjustments to aim easier.
Then when it came to big movements, like fully changing direction or tracking a fast moving target it would rapidly track the player’s input at full speed. This allowed players using all sensitivity modes to be competitive.

Key Responsibilities:

Arena design for Spaceport Showdown

Gamepad sensitivity design and general gamepad control feedback