Managing the Distance
Dying Light
Project Overview
"Managing the Distance" is a single-player mod for Dying Light in which the player is tasked with taking on waves of enemies through 5 areas each of which is designed around a specific challenge. Originally designed my thesis, it's designed to test what best practices to use for encouraging combat style switching.
Engine: Dying Light - Dev Tools
Platform: PC
Development Time: 5-8 Months (300+ hours)
Playtime: 10 - 15 minutes
Design Goals
Design Goal 1 - Melee and Ranged Combat
To incentivize the use of different combat styles, multiple enemy types were used.
The level begins with Melee focused enemies to let the player adapt.
Virals chase the player and attack quickly, this makes it harder to take shots at them when close so melee weapons are more effective at taking them out.
Biters can easily swarm players because they come in groups, by using melee weapons players can take out multiple at once.
Human enemies will dodge players' attacks making them harder enemies to fight. Fighting multiple forces players to stay aware while fighting increasing the difficulty of the level.
Virals chase the player and attack quickly, this makes it harder to take shots at them when close so melee weapons are more effective at taking them out.
As the difficulty ramps up, more melee enemies are introduced to provide new challenges.
Bombers chase after players and will detonate on contact or when killed. This reinforces ranged as the bomber forces the player to run away in order to kill it without harming the player.
Humans wielding guns stay near cover, making them more stationary targets. They can deal damage very quickly, but being stationary makes them easier to kill using guns and ranged weapons.
The Goon is a slow-moving enemy that deals a lot of damage. This can make it harder to kill for inexperienced players so it's more efficient to take it out from further away.
Bombers chase after players and will detonate on contact or when killed. This reinforces ranged as the bomber forces the player to run away in order to kill it without harming the player.
Using different types of cover also helped players use each playstyle.
Design Goal 2 - Teaching Combat
Transition hallways were designed to teach player's about new weapons and enemies before they went into the main combat rooms.
At the start of the level, there are 2 biters placed across a barrier. This allows the player time to learn the machete and the open space allows them room to engage with the biters.
Placing the Bomber in a hallway with short sightlines forces the player to engage with it. Giving the gun in the same hallway reinforces that the Bomber should be killed with the pistol.
Toads are weak enemies that fire out a ranged projectile, by placing them on a higher point the player learns where toads will most likely be and that it's ideal to use ranged weapons against them.
At the start of the level, there are 2 biters placed across a barrier. This allows the player time to learn the machete and the open space allows them room to engage with the biters.
Design Goal 3 - Combat Switching
Techniques to Enforce Switching between Melee and Ranged Combat
- Combining Enemies
- Combining Cover
- Using Level Obstacles
Virals will charge at the player with melee attacks, so the player will more likely use melee. But if they see a Bomber, they will switch to range so the Bomber doesn't explode near them.
Using tall cover and long sightlines to enable ranged combat.
Short and circular allow for more movement options, enabling melee combat.
Explosive parrels can encourage ranged if placed further away, while barrels closer encourage melee so the player doesn't set them off.
Development Process
Designing the map
The level was centered around combat, which meant introducing new challenges at a steady rate and creating new scenarios for the player.
The difficulty was the biggest challenge was there were initially more enemies in each room rather then focusing on specific enemies. This overwhelmed most players so the design was changed to accommodate it.
Room 1 introduces melee combat along with melee focused enemies.
Whitebox
Launch
Room 4 focuses on gaps in the geometry along with Toads that shoot acidic projectiles.
Whitebox
Launch
Room 5 is designed to test master by combining all prior zombie types along with the boss zombie, The Goon.
Whitebox
Launch
Post Mortem
What Went Well
Getting References and Implementing Best Practices
In order to implement modality switching, a lot of research was done. This included GDC talks, documentation, and referencing other games to figure out how they encouraged combat style switching. This process took a while, but it allowed to figure out what worked and implement without having to overhaul the level.
Initial Flow and Layout
While the enemy and geometry placement went through many iterations, the overall flow and pacing of the map was consistent with the initial design. Elements such as pacing out enemy introduction and using transition hallways to introduce new gameplay elements remained from the LDD and the changes centered around difficulty and object placement.
What Went Wrong
Lacking Melee Options
Originally the player was going to have access to way more melee options and abilities. This was removed was there was concern that players would abuse these rather then use the actual melee weapons.....
What I Learned
Get Gameplay References Before Designing
There was always a clear vision for the main path, but the design techniques to force combat switching were not finalized at the start. If I could go back I would gather more research on how combat style switching is done in other games before going into whitebox.
Make sure to balance both combat styles
Find multiple solutions to balance out both combat styles would have helped the level encourage modality even more. I would look more into Dying Light but other fps games with melee combat to see how they balance between melee and ranged, such as Condemned.
Gallery
