Description of Work
- Acted as the world lead to develop overall plan for world through design documents and grey-block environment along with environment artists
- Was the main point of contact for all cinematic locations, boss locations and world vfx
- Gave Regular feedback, inspiration, motivation and mentorship to all developers relying on world design
- Created regular team presentations on world development
- Create
- High level world design and planning
- Detailed world design briefs
- World grey block implementation
- High level content and placement planning
- Content and placement implementation
- Assisted with player and world metrics
- Wrote best practice documents for World Artists
- Fed back on the intelligence of player metrics and data reports
- Worked with Engineers to improve the interface and technology of Forge, Capcom Vancouver's internal development engine
Arriving at Capcom
After being laid off from Threewave Inc., I decided it was time for a change. I spend 4-5 months working on my new portfolio piece: Klepto's Tragedy, before starting to apply around to places in the hopes that I would find something where I'd have a larger part in the game design. After hearing that Blue Castle Games had signed a deal with Capcom to develop a sequel to Dead Rising 2, I applied for an environment position. I brought Klepto's Tragedy with me - it was my new portfolio, afterall. After the first hour, the interview changed direction, and I was being interviewed by the design staff instead of the art staff. My portfolio piece paid off.
Now, I understood that Blue Castle Games wouldn't be filled with staff from Capcom Japan, but the thought of having my name in the credits of a Capcom game was an amazing opportunity.
My first day on the job it was apparent that the team had been spinning on trying to identify what the game was for quite some time. In concept the game was comprised of mega casino cities connected by a bullet train. They had a single casino (sans city) playable to show me on my first day. It wasn't until later on that I had learned that the concept team was feeding the level design to the environment team. This posed a problem, as there was no mission content driving the direction, it was more of a free-for-all. They just didn't have anyone to direct them properly about how to make an action game, having come from award-winning baseball games, a completely different genre which required different expertise. It wasn't until Josh Bridge arrived, in the role of Level Design Director two weeks later, that things ended up in reboot mode.
I worked closely with Josh to come up with a blueprint for the world that was achievable within the time remaining. There would be no casino cities, and no monorail connecting them. Instead, there would be one large sandbox, like Dead Rising. Josh taught me how to pick Dead Rising apart and see everything underneath to look for things like player and world metrics, mission scripting, and less visible things like inherent player pathing, player progression and economy. I sat in a small room with Josh and an environment artist that was trying to help out with all the level work.
Planning a Casino Inspired World
Josh quickly mocked up a few City sizes in Illustrator to get a quick feel for what it might be like and to help the rest of us understand his vision. I executed on that high level design in grey block for quite some time, as we went in circles with the current leadership. With Jason focused on gameplay mechanics, and Rob focused on boss battles, who was at the helm of missions and world? Perhaps even more concerning, who was running the economy? These were holes on the team that Josh quickly filled, and in turn, I learned a lot about mission design, world design and tuning/balance.
I iterated on Grey Block independently after Josh turned his focus towards missions and cinematics. The deadline was quickly approaching for alpha and there wasn't a moment to waste.
World Grey Block, after 4 months of planning missions/cinematics and construction with metrics
The initial layer of planning was mostly about the size of the world and the overall footprint of the outer ring. We moved forward with detailing this exterior for gameplay as planning continued on story and missions. That left me to build secondary pathing and interior spaces. Little did I know at this point, but the story and missions would end up changing almost 50% of the design. I had to employ speed and efficiency with everything that I did to continuously feed the environment team with work.
This early world Grey Block was pre-theme park before the world moved to be on a bute, and carry the name "Fortune City"
We visited Casinos in town, but it wasn't enough to get the real feel for things. The senior leadership went to Vegas, mostly for the experience, but also grabbed pictures where they could. The rest of us grabbed reference from everywhere we could. I collected a ton of reference and collaborated with Fran Gaulin, who was concepting most of the environments to come up with boards to follow architectural details and think about landmarking as well as slot layout.
The Americana Casino
The reference board for the Americana Casino
This would be the first casino in the game the player would experience, so naturally it was also the smallest Casino to explore. We churned on this one a little bit, but overall there wasn't much disagreement between art and design. I let them make aesthetic adjustments, and they collaborate where art and design clash. A good example of this is most "awkward" climbing and jumping, as it doesn't quite feel natural to be jumping around in a Casino...but it sure is fun! I blocked out the space, and the environment artists put it together as I moved onto the Royal Flush Shopping Mall. Somewhere along the line we also learned that the Americana was being used to showcase the game at E3, and it was given a specific pass of content for a specific E3 demo mission, starring the machine gun wheelchair.
My 2D sketch of the Americana Casino Floor Plan
At this point I was loving the aspects of Grey Blocking and having a heavy hand in how the world was taking shape. Working together with a team to put missions together had me bouncing out of bed in the morning, excited to head to work early, a trend that would continue throughout Dead Rising 3 as well.
I would churn on ideas, then present them to Josh, and then he would show them to the exec team.
Grey Block with simple notes
I would sit down with the artists that were going to be creating the art for the environment and run them through the 2d, the 3d maya scene and then send them images with notes, to inform them of the design so they could also feel free to do their thing and still meet the requirements.
Americana Casino Grey Block vs Art Comparisons
Looking at the bar from the South Entrance
Looking at the bar from the East Entrance
Looking down at the bar from the ninja path above the restaurant food tables
Environments for Cinematics and Boss Battles
As the story settled and the cinematics department got into full swing, the collaboration required between world, missions and cinematics was daily, and on multiple environments. Many concessions were made going both ways to pull it all off on schedule. The images below show off some of the notes I would write up for cine, missions and engineers
The Secret Lab, found in the Underground. This area was important for Cinematics and Gameplay, as the player learned about queen harvesting, and the player unlocked the BFG
Grey Block notes for the destruction setup of the floor for an early boss battle with sullivan
Case Zero
As the content design and placement work finished up on Dead Rising 2 mainline, I was heralded off to start working on Case Zero. It was pre-DLC for Dead Rising 2, intended to get users excited for the main Dead Rising 2 game. Priced at $5, it made a big impact, touting lots of value for the price, and a fun game as well. It made sales records, as it sold 500, 000 digital downloads on xbox 360, which it was exclusive to.
On day 1, I sat in Jason's office with Kevin as Jason walked us through an early Dead Rising 2 demo that Blue Castle pitched to Capcom several years prior. Jason was quite proud of the achievement and had hoped that the mainline adventure would be more like it. It was a U-shaped world with a couple of objectives and a single store. It had a small-town vibe to it, and seemingly riddled with possibilities. I understood that it was more of a sentimental attachment more than anything else, but I did like the promise of it. So since his goal was to inspire us with their first efforts for a Case Zero mission, Kevin and I took that away and came up with a written mission outline, and a 2D map.
The story had little impact on the design of the world, but there was a few things. Since it had been written already, it was easier for us to inject side-mission content and look at the gameplay progression. Two things Case Zero needed to prove was that combo weapons mattered and that Zombrex was going to be cool, rather than be a pain in the ass. Only one of these two things ended up being true :D
An early sketch of the world layout for Case Zero
We iterated on the map with location placement and cinematics very quickly, and it went from being an idea to being the actual world. I tried to pack as much game play as I could into the small environment. I utilized rooftops, locked doors, hidden loot and secret areas. It was also be the first "Town" environment for Dead Rising. We also knew that it had to be fun, and the fun was mostly in the killing of zombies, and doing so with cool new combo weapons.
The near-final 2D map with mission flow, stores, and other gameplay noted
Once again, I created the Grey Block for the world of Case Zero. I went back and forth between 2D and 3D all the time to get a really good sense of where everything was and needed to be as missions shifted around. In the earliest stages it was just Kevin and I. I did all the greyblock and level design work, while he did all the content placement. John Ellenton joined us a bit later as the mission scripter, and Rob Aduna as the environment artist. I worked closely with Rob to put together feedback documents for our outsource partners, who provided most of the environment art.
Close to final Grey Block of Case Zero, Looking North, from the West Entrance
Looking from the North Exit to the Southwest Entrance
With everything being locked down quickly, again I was whisked off to another project, this time to support the team that had been plugging away on designs for Case West, the Epilogue to Dead Rising 2.
Case West
During our Prologue brainstorming session, we also had the overall blueprint for the Epilogue of the game, which was later named Case: West. Design and Grey Block had been going on for about 2 months previously with another dedicated team, who had just come off of a cancelled project unrelated to Dead Rising.
My first day on the project was like a deja-vu of my first day on Dead Rising 2. Again, the world was huge with many areas planned to be created. It was far too much for the team to create, especially since we had no clue what we needed. The mission designs were still buried in brainstorms from earlier in the year. Kevin and I set out to get the story and missions in order while re-evaluating the world at the same time. We quickly decided that we needed to start over with a smaller, tighter plan and focus on the telling of Phenotrans to close out the game.
My first day on the project was like a deja-vu of my first day on Dead Rising 2. Again, the world was huge with many areas planned to be created. It was far too much for the team to create, especially since we had no clue what we needed. The mission designs were still buried in brainstorms from earlier in the year. Kevin and I set out to get the story and missions in order while re-evaluating the world at the same time. We quickly decided that we needed to start over with a smaller, tighter plan and focus on the telling of Phenotrans to close out the game.
Two heroes brought together for Case: West
We had just 2 weeks to bring together the missions and grey block for the project or we'd be at risk of slipping on our deadline. We thought that naturally, Phenotrans would conduct their business in a warehouse where they'd have an operation for manufacturing bees. A Warehouse could be constructed modularly, and prevent the need for vista pieces.
Reference Boards used to inform the designs for the Warehouse in Case: West
Before long, there was a floor plan and mission flow for the game. There was little time to iterate since we were on such a tight schedule, but there were a few mission re-writes and some pathing that needed to be cleaned up through a few cycles of iteration. I went back and forth between 2D and 3D, figuring out design flow issues and connecting missions in ways that met the requirements.
Final 2D Design of the last DR2 Map...or so I thought
The initial sketches of the Warehouse along with the reference gave me enough of a vision to roll forward into 3D. The metrics by this point were second nature and I was busting out iterations quickly. The metrics were second nature at this point and I'd really grown to enjoy working in Max. I especially loved the snapping options, they were perfect for environment modeling. The small team producing Case: West was again, tightly knit. It would be the third time doing Missions and World together for Kevin and I. John Ellenton would also later join us as the Mission Scripter. We were all used to how to communicate effectively with each other so development was smooth.
Render of the Warehouse Floor Plan
The Loading Area, looking at the Safe House
The Loading Area, looking at the shipping containers
Storage Area looking at the Medical Storage
Storage Area looking at the Catwalk above the herding pens
Main Zombie sorting area, looking at the Security Station
Sorting area, looking towards the West at the Main Security Office
Living Quarters area looking West
Living Quarters area looking East
Zombrex production labs looking South
Zombrex production labs looking North
Once again, before Case: West wrapped up I was required for yet another DR2 project. This surprised me, as I expected to move to DR3 at this point, thinking that everything that could be done with DR2 had been. Apparently I was wrong! Capcom decided they wanted a director's cut of Dead Rising 2 starring Frank West, since Frank was more popular than Chuck Greene. To go along with the Director's Cut, they also needed an entirely new area to the game, and new connections leading to it, to go along with the entirely re-written story to star Frank instead of Chuck.
Off The Record
I didn't have much involvement with the story and missions for Off The Record. I was given the task of facilitating the team with as minimal of a design grey block as I could to get the ball rolling so that I could move to Dead Rising 3. I spent 4 weeks with the Creative Director: Jason Leigh along with Annie Ried who re-wrote the plot of Dead Rising 2 to star Frank West instead of Chuck Greene.
Jason wanted the new area to be an amusement park, complete with operational rides for killing zombies in clever ways. It took a lot of collaboration with engineers and artists to figure out what we could do in terms of amusement attractions, and in the end we settled on some fairly basic ones. These would later become the backbone for new technology in Dead Rising 3 for interactive props and environment.
Much like Case: West there wasn't a lot of iteration on the Grey Block. The area had little to do with the revamped story, so it was basically being made as a cool playground for players to kill zombies in interesting ways. Having already done DR2 mainline, Prologue and Epilogue I was given a lot of freedom to do what I wanted and also guide the rest of the team to accomplish it.
Jason wanted the new area to be an amusement park, complete with operational rides for killing zombies in clever ways. It took a lot of collaboration with engineers and artists to figure out what we could do in terms of amusement attractions, and in the end we settled on some fairly basic ones. These would later become the backbone for new technology in Dead Rising 3 for interactive props and environment.
Much like Case: West there wasn't a lot of iteration on the Grey Block. The area had little to do with the revamped story, so it was basically being made as a cool playground for players to kill zombies in interesting ways. Having already done DR2 mainline, Prologue and Epilogue I was given a lot of freedom to do what I wanted and also guide the rest of the team to accomplish it.
It took one month to complete the 2D map, and have the Grey Block in-game and functional. I had fun with this as well, but it was also a different experience, as Kevin - who I was used to working with for missions - went straight to Dead Rising 3. I found that I had to do a lot of explaining and show-and-tell to the mission designers that were working on Off The Record, but it was good to mentor them about level design and why things need to be certain ways. For example, metrics are there for a reason, and to purposely design something that goes against the restrictions of the metrics is almost always a bad idea that leads to unexpected results.
Final Grey Block of the Uranus Zone
In the end, Off The Record ended up being a worthwhile experience that involved a lot of mentorship. It was also a challenge in that the Uranus Zone had to connect to several other areas of the game without breaking any connections. The team felt that it seamlessly fit into the world and enhanced the Player's route of travel through it. Off The Record officially closed the doors on Dead Rising 2, and I moved on to Dead Rising 3, which had just begun brainstorming sessions for Story and Missions.