In early 2017, the team at Carbine began to discuss their next project. What would eventually result from these discussions was what came to be known as code-name "Project Laguna" - an multi-platform ARPG that featured parkour movement, action combat, and fast-paced cooperative play that took place in an alternate version of the 1920s.
I led the team from pitch all the way through a fun, polished playable prototype in Unreal 4.0 - featuring 4-person multiplayer and true cross-platform support. It was a great achievement by a focused and passionate team. This is what we did to make it happen.
GAME VISION
In the earliest stages of this project, I wrote a number of design documents which defined the overall game vision, our design pillars, a proposed feature set, and the game's personality and tone. These documents included comparable game systems and experiences, as well as the books and movies that exemplified the emotional impact that we wanted our players to feel when they experienced our game.
These documents served as a touchstone for the team, presenting a clear vision of what we were creating, as well as a guidepost that that we could return to when making decisions on the best ways to expand and improve the game. It was extremely important to myself and my leaders that we presented a clear and unified vision to the team - and these documents provided the clarity and stability that we needed to move forward.
Image Credit: Dave Phillips
Image Credit: Dave Phillips
IP DEVELOPMENT
Project Laguna took place in an alternate version of the 1920s, where Earth has mysteriously been invaded by gods and monsters from man's mythological past. We really liked this historical timeframe because it was a time of great exploration and discovery, and the game setting allowed us to leverage familiar figures from both history and mythology to draw players more deeply into our world.
Our player characters were known as the Sentinels, and each of them reflected was special about the game's IP. One was a circus strongman. Another a brilliant industrialist. They were a diverse cast with complex personalities and origin stories. We also developed our own versions of traditional mythological pantheons in order to tell a story that was uniquely our own.
PLAYABLE PROTOTYPE
Once our GDD was complete, we developed a Gameplay Target prototype that was meant to showcase the moment-to-moment combat experience in our game. Although not a complete vertical slice, it did present a more polished artistic and design experience - featuring 4-person multiplayer support, cross-platform play (PC, XBOX and PS4), two playable sentinels with attack combinations and ultimates, a working procedural content system, team celebration screens with actual achievements and statistics, and in-game cinematics. All of this was done in Unreal 4.0.
Overall, it was a great presentation of the game's unique design at an early stage. This video shows some of its highlights.
[NOTE: the split-screen sections in the video were just a post-process addition. The game did not feature split-screen play.]
