Overview
ALARA Prime is a competitive 4v4v4 tactical shooter where three teams of four fight for control of an Uplink. One team defends and the other two attack.
Matches take place on maps with two Uplink Sites, where the defenders start and the two attacking teams spawn on opposite sides of the map.
Defenders must protect the uplink until their timer expires, while Attackers must capture and hold the uplink until their timer runs out.
As a Technical Designer, my role on this project has been largely tied to designing and implementing gameplay features inside Unreal Engine 5. I have worked on larger gameplay concepts such as Breaching and Hacking, to the onboarding of new players in the Tutorial, as well as the design and implementation of specific gadgets.
I have approached each of these tasks on the project with the goal of creating a more cohesive experience for the player.
My Contributions
Role: Technical Designer
Duration: 2021 - 2025
Responsibilities:
Gameplay Design
Scripting (UE5 Blueprints)
Feature Prototyping
Balancing
Owned Features:
Tutorial
The tutorial has been my sole responsibility from the initial concept phase through to the final implementation. The purpose of the tutorial is to provide a comprehensive guide that prepares players for real matches by simulating authentic gameplay scenarios and ensuring a smooth learning curve for new players.
To prepare the player for entering a match it features bots in place of players to teach the player about locations from which enemies can come.
Given the wide array of gadgets available in ALARA Prime, trying to introduce all of them to the player during their first experience would likely lead to information overload.
As a result, the scope of the tutorial has been limited to introducing the concept of using gadgets but leaving the full roster of gadgets to another training scenario.
Movement
The first step is familiarizing the player with the controls for movement and camera control. This segment starts in a default spawn location on the Oasis map and leads the player through the normal path to the Uplink Site by prompting them to follow a set of pointers that direct the player towards the next area.
Loadout
This segment prompts the player to explore the loadout menu to learn how to equip weapons and gadgets. The player has no time limit in this segment so they have time to read and learn what the gadgets do.
Attacking
The first core gameplay segment includes bots that fire at the player and an interactive uplink. The player has to defeat the defending team, capture the uplink and protect it from the other attacking team.
Defending
This segment presents the player with the opposite perspective, where they start as a defender. The player is prompted to change their class and place gadgets that are well suited for defending in beneficial positions. The player then has to defend the Uplink from attackers.
Breaching
Breachable Wall
The purpose of the Breachable Wall was to introduce a destructible element within the level that would provide a key location for defenders and attackers to pay attention to.
During ALARA Prime's prototype stage, there was a gadget that created a foam wall, breakable only with delayed explosives. The foam wall was eventually redesigned and the redesign was accompanied by discussions about more interactive level elements. These discussions led to the creation of the Breachable Wall.
A wall comprised of a grid of triangles that can be destroyed individually by Breachers and Breach Rounds.
Can be fortified to prevent the attackers from breaching.
The Breacher was redesigned to be the main method for players to open a path to the Uplink site through Breachable Walls.
Breacher
A thrown device with a remote detonator that blows a hole in a breachable wall after a brief delay.
The breacher also deals radial damage upon detonation.
With the introduction of the Breachable Wall, I was tasked with the redesign of the explosives. This redesign included giving players remote control over detonation and making the Breachers blow holes half the size of a player. The initial idea was to use one hole for crouching and two for a full hole, but the vast majority of players used both Breachers simultaneously to make a full character-sized hole. To match the player intent and provide a better user experience, the behaviour of the gadget was updated to always make a full-sized hole.
The Tactical Wall was designed to provide the player with a way to block a path or at least stall enemies from making their way through an area.
Tactical Wall
A segment of wall that can extend to cover a door opening or a portion of a room
Alternatively, it can be placed on a Breachable Wall to fortify it, preventing breaching.
In addition to being able to block an open path, the Tactical Wall can be deployed on a Breachable Wall, protecting the wall from breaching. With this interaction, the Tactical Wall offered users multiple application options. However, even with the new design, there were some inconsistencies, particularly in its interaction with hacking. The Tactical Wall would blow up panel by panel when hacked, a uniquely destructive interaction amongst other gadget interactions. This led me to explore different paths toward more consistent hacking behaviour, which is expanded upon in the next section.
One of the Assault Rifles, Lance, was due a redesign for its alternative fire, so I took the opportunity to introduce an alternative interaction with the Breachable wall, which allowed the player to create a peek hole without allowing passage.
Breach Round
A small explosive fired from the Lance, will punch a small peek hole in a Breachable Wall, but unlike the Breacher it cannot make a passable opening.
The Breach Round also deals radial damage upon detonation.
Hacking
Initially Hacking was a feature for a single gadget, the Hacking Drone, with many interactions being unique to specific targets and some were distinctly different from the rest, such as the aforementioned Tactical Wall interaction.
Today hacking is a feature that will let the player change ownership of objects that have teamed behaviour or toggle behaviour of objects that are team agnostic, but it is distinctly non-destructive.
The Hacking Drone is used to capture the Uplink, transferring ownership to the team of the player using the Drone until action is taken by another team.
It can also be used to toggle behaviour of any team-agnostic gadgets.
As the development of ALARA went on, something that didn’t sit right with me was that we had this really cool system of hacking, but it was still restricted to a single gadget and it felt like wasted potential. To address this, I proposed the alternative fire mode of our third Assault Rifle should temporarily hack any targeted object.
Hacking Dart Prototype
Initially, the prototype was a dart that would attach to objects, but it proved too difficult to balance clarity and aesthetics during the art pass. This led to it being changed to a swarm of nanobots. The introduction of the Hacking Swarm breathed new life into the concept of hacking. It provided players with an alternative, more accessible, but less reliable way of taking control of gadgets and the uplink.
With the introduction of the Hacking Swarm, the idea of hacking shifted from a single action to a more holistic concept that could be interacted with in multiple ways.
Hacking Swarm
A swarm of nanobots that will take control of its target and maintain control as long as it is alive, once it is destroyed, ownership returns to the previous team.
If the target object is team-agnostic, its behaviour is toggled during its interaction.
Anti-Jammer
The purpose with the Anti-Jammer was to provide counterplay for two features; Jamming (Disabling) and Hacking of gadgets.
With the expansion of hacking functionality, it became clear there was a need for a countermeasure for hacking and jamming, something that defenders could use preemptively to protect their gadgets from being rendered inert. So with a clear goal in mind and a short period of conception, I brought forth the Anti-Jammer.
A gadget that projects a field within which any other placed gadgets are protected from jamming and hacking.
It was designed with a small range, requiring intentional placement. The Anti-Jammer also had placement restrictions to ensure exposure to at least one attacker angle and doesn’t render the offensive gadgets moot. This balance made the Anti-Jammer valuable for defenders and important to protect without being too strong.
Additional Gadgets
The purpose of redesigning the Projectile Nullifier was to enhance player engagement in its functionality
Projectile Nullifier
A gadget that can be placed on any surface and cause any enemy projectile that enters its range to slow down and become vulnerable to being shot.
The Projectile Nullifier existed as a gadget before I joined the company, but its initial design lacked player involvement.
It automatically destroyed any projectile (excluding bullets) within range, which proved to be strong but lacked player engagement. To address this, I suggested we update its functionality to make projectiles vulnerable to damage. This required players to actively track and destroy the projectiles themselves, adding a layer of interaction to the gadget.
In addition to this, projectiles travel very quickly and thus had to be slowed down to make hitting them more feasible. The rework reduced the raw power of the gadget but balanced it out with a shorter cooldown. The new design is an engaging addition to the defense of a team, requiring player action to function and is made stronger when closely monitored by having the cooldown lowered if its target is destroyed quickly.
The Healing Station was introduced to the game primarily as a way to provide each team with a better chance of facing off against multiple teams by replenishing their health.
Healing Station
A stationary source of healing that can be placed on a wall. Interacting players will be granted a periodic healing effect.
This effect will bring the player back to 80% of full health, as the max recoverable health is restricted.
When I first started working on ALARA Prime, there was no healing in the game.
If your team was low on health after a fight your options were limited. This was frequently brought up in feedback and prompted the development of one of my first feature: the Healing Syringe. It introduced a handheld healing device, granting players the ability to heal while on the move. The reception for it was polarizing, but I kept gathering feedback while thinking about improvements.
The primary issue was players retreating to heal out of sight after gunfights. Despite several tweaks to the Healing Syringe, a fundamental redesign was needed, leading to the creation of the Healing Station. Having to be placed statically, it countered the strategy of fleeing while healing and garnered notably positive feedback. It also pushed the idea of healing from a selfish gadget pick to a dedicated and valuable role.
The idea behind introducing the Shock Trap to the game was to make players more strategic in their approach to the objective, paying attention to their surroundings and proceeding cautiously.
Shock Trap
A trap that will catch any player that walks over it and hold them in place while dealing damage over time.
The trapped player is also spotted, making them visible to the owning team through walls.
Initially, the Shock Trap was designed only to catch the player and cause them to be unable to move while dealing periodic damage. With its initial design, it was a good addition to the array of gadgets we had at the time, but as testing went on, it became apparent that it was missing something.
In ALARA Prime, with two enemy teams, knowing your enemies' positions is crucial. Though the Shock Trap had an audio cue when triggered, identifying the trapped player's location was still difficult. To address this, I opted to make the trapped player get spotted, revealing their location through walls. This change further emphasized the importance of checking for traps while also improving the owning team's user experience.
Gun Range
Some time after I had joined the team, someone mentioned in passing that we didn’t have a way for us to test our guns on actual targets, which made me realize we also didn’t have a way to practice our aim in the game. This prompted me to suggest we add a gun range, which became another one of my sole responsibilities.
Though it has gone through many iterations, the core identity of the Gun Range remains the same, it provides the player with an area to practice their aim and familiarise themselves with the different weapons in the game.
In the settings of the Gun Range, the player has a set of options to control how they want to practice.
Available Options:
Practice Mode
Ammo consumption mode
Practice Attributes
Max simultaneous targets
Spawn locations
Required kill count
Target Attributes
Movement
Lifespan
Health
In-world Feedback
A part of the design philosophy for the initial stages of ALARA Prime was to have the player at the center of all displays of skill. The more things you could pay attention to and keep track of, the more information you had to work with, and that was part of the skillset that made a good ALARA Prime player.
However, as time passed the feedback received about being caught off-guard by certain events started ramping up and it was beginning to show that this was a problem. As a solution I suggested we add an icon indicator over any destroyed gadget, alerting the owning team through terrain. This proved to relieve some of the pressure of keeping track of everything that was going on and reduce the number of times a player died due to being unaware of a flank.
Not long after the introduction of the destroyed icons, during a discussion, it became clear to me that the same behaviour could be extended to include when a gadget is triggered. After a quick addition to the in-world icon behaviour it was ready to test and also garnered positive feedback.
It went through a couple of iterations but eventually ended up with a design that balanced clear indication with being non-intrusive.