Project Overview
Hunt: Showdown is a competitive first-person PvP bounty hunting game with heavy PvE elements.
Hunt’s competitive, match-based gameplay mixes PvP and PvE elements to create a uniquely tense experience where your life, your character, and your gear are always on the line.
At the beginning of each match, up to five teams of two set out to track their monstrous targets. Once they’ve found and defeated one of these they will receive a bounty—and instantly become a target for every other Hunter left on the map. If you don’t watch your back, you’ll find a knife in it, and your last memory will be of another team of Hunters walking away with your prize.
The higher the risk, the higher the reward–but a single mistake could cost you everything.
Personal Role
During my time as a Junior Technical Designer, and progressing into a regular System Designer role, it is my job to design and implement features relating to AI cast, player mechanics and weapons in Hunt. I've had to touch a lot of different tools and systems to build and maintain the game before and during early access, and in doing so became a source of technical and design knowledge for the team.
Some of the specific features I have been responsible for:
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The Assassin (Boss AI - design & implementation)
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The Waterdevil (Special AI - design & implementation)
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The Spider (Boss AI - improve previous design & implementation)
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Weapon balancing (calculation, pipeline improvements, implementation)
Platform:
PC, Xbox
Engine:
CryEngine 5
Tools:
Schematyc (Visual Scripting), Database (XML, animation, weapon data, AI data)
Pipeline:
CryEngine 5, Visual Studio 2015
Project Timeline:
Joined: August 2017
Early Access: February 2018
Full Release: TBD
Xbox Game Preview: TBD
Xbox Full Release: TBD
Team Size:
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~80 Game Team Devs
Personal Role:
System Designer (AI, World, Player and Weapons)
The Assassin
To develop fresh content based on community feedback I was tasked to design and own a new boss AI feature. As feature owner it was my job to drive the development across departments to fit the asset creation into this design. Alongside this as a technical designer, it was also my job to implement the character inside CryEngine from the ground up using tools such as visual scripting and behaviour trees.
Character achievements:
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Refined the core concept of a Hunt: Showdown boss character which then helped bring up the quality of the game's other bosses
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Offered more of a tactical challenge for an AI character which was highly appreciated by the community
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Brought the focus of the game back to its horror roots
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Only used tools that were already available, needing no code input throughout development
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The Waterdevil
During a period of rapid development for content updates after our early access release I began to work on a new AI cast member. The goal for the Waterdevil was to fill the gap which is created by all of the water in our level, and to play a wildcard role - in this round my usual escape route is blocked, do I go around or do I go through?
While the development was performed around a lot of other work I was doing at the time, this character managed to make it out of the door. While there were some tweaks needed after a few months of being released, it ultimately achieved its brief and provided intense moments of gameplay.
Character achievements:
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Built during a haphazard development schedule
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Refined AI tools by using them in ways they weren't built for
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Created a healthy fear of water areas in the maps
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Weapon Balancing
During my onboarding period I chose to help develop the weapon balancing pipeline alongside my use of the tools in CryEngine. With this I got to get my hands on a lot the weapon setups and balancing concepts of the game, which ultimately led me to co-owning the weaponry of Hunt with the lead designer.
My work on the weapon balancing has included the following:
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Development of the balancing calculation sheet in Excel (used to bring together all values such as; damage, range falloff, body multipliers etc.)
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Design discussions with the lead designer to shape the path of balancing
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Calculation of ideal values for damage, falloff etc.
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Implementation of these values in CryEngine
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Logic and animation setup/maintenance of weaponry in the arsenal