Repeater Roulette
Repeater Roulette is a first-person roguelike horror-shooter with procedurally generated rooms and randomised items. I worked on Repeater Roulette from Pre-Production starting in May 2021 to the Itch Release in June 2022 working in systems, combat and level design.
Repeater Roulette was a Rookies 'Game of The Year' 2022 finalist.
Platform: PC Team Size: 15 Engine: Unity Duration: 1 year [Apr '21 - Jun '22]
Role: Systems, Level and Combat Design
Genres: Horror, FPS, Roguelike
My Contributions
I worked within many different fields during the development of Repeater Roulette. I was on both system and level design and pre-production among other tasks detailed below.
​
Blue Sky:
-
Conceptualized and produced the initial intellectual property for the game.
Game Design:
-
Weapon Customization: Developed a detailed weapon customization system for player personalization.
-
Perk System: Designed an innovative perk system to enhance gameplay variety.
-
Shop Feature: Designed an in-game shop feature for item purchases and upgrades.
-
3Cs: Designed dynamic player movement features for fluid gameplay.
Combat Design:
-
Gameplay Concepts: Designed gameplay concepts for various enemies to ensure a cohesive and engaging player experience.
-
Block & Parry Mechanics: Designed a block and parry system to enrich combat mechanics.
-
Behaviour Trees: Crafted flow charts for each enemy's behaviour tree to dictate AI actions.
-
Enemy Archetypes: Created diverse enemy archetypes to challenge players.
Level Design:
-
Modular Combat Arenas: Designed modular combat arenas compatible with a procedural room spawner for varied gameplay experiences.
-
Art & Lighting Passes: Implemented rough art and lighting passes using pre-existing assets to create immersive environments.
-
Blockouts: Created blockouts for major areas including the Basement, Casino, and Lab.
​​
Production:
-
Collaboration with Concept Artists: Worked with concept artists on the visual design of enemies and the gun arm, contributing to the game's unique aesthetic.
-
Art Bible: Contributed to the creation of the Art Bible, documenting the visual and artistic guidelines for the game.
-
Project Management: Organized sprints and scrums to maintain project momentum and ensure timely delivery.
-
Team Collaboration: Worked collaboratively with all team members to ensure the project's vision remained cohesive and on track.
-
Playtesting: Organized playtest sessions to gather feedback and refine gameplay.
​
Misc. Contributions:
-
Trailer Direction: Directed both gameplay and teaser trailers to effectively market the game.
-
Voice Acting: Directed voice acting sessions to ensure high-quality vocal performances.
-
Audio Design: Designed the audio for initial prototype builds to establish the game's soundscape.​
Repeater Roulette Overview
Repeater Roulette is an FPS roguelike with it's unique selling point being the weapon system. The gun system in our game draws inspiration from roguelike titles like Binding of Isaac and Noita.
I liked the idea of body horror and having weird science experiments and your gun literally grafted to you. After discussion we decided to set the game inside an old casino. This gave us a clear theme that we coined Blood-Deco, it gave us a great juxtaposition with the fancy Art Deco and dark sadistic horrors.
I designed a flow chart for the gameplay loop. I wanted the core loop to have the intense combat complimented with exploration and build management.
We worked in 2 week sprints utilising agile methodologies. As the team was big enough, we split into smaller strike teams for the games core features(Enemies, Levels, Progression, Proc Gen, Weapons). I would then dip in and out of teams to help conceptualise features and offer insight.
Combat Design
Design Goal: We wanted to create a combat system based on the power curve. Starting with an early struggle with later runs empowering the player to dominate.
Contributions:
I worked closely on 3 key systems for the combat system: Weapons, Enemies and Player Movement. whilst having creative control over the overall combat experience.
Weapon Design
Overview: The gun and its systems were a core pillar of the game as a whole. We wanted the gun system to be a USP for Repeater Roulette. I worked as the core systems designer for the gun and its mechanics, working with the programmer as well as the art team to create a gun that was on theme both visually and mechanically.
Design Goal: Most roguelike shooters have a limited arsenal. I wanted a weapon system for a roguelike that would allow players to change their playstyles based on an extensive weapon arsenal. I also wanted the weapon to feel like an rpg skill tree, increasing power as the run continues.
Design Problem: We were time constrained, and had a limited budget of developers that could work on weapon design. We couldn't create an infinite arsenal of weapons like Borderlands.
Homefront:The Revolution [Crytek UK, 2016]
Design Inspiration: I initially looked at Binding of Isaac for inspiration as my favourite roguelike. I felt that we could utilise fire modifiers and give the player additive modifiers.
I also looked to Crytek Games and the in-field gun customization that's synonymous with their games like Crysis and Homefront: The Revolution.
Finally we took inspiration from Noita's wands; They had a system that would sequentially fire spells from the wand.
Design Solution: The final product was a gun system that would fire and sequentially check the modules and modifiers to create a new weapon experience with each different module. My main goal was to bring the bombastic itemisation from Binding Of Isaac into the realm of a 3D First Person Shooter.
The weapon system increased replayability at a reduced development cost. We utilised scriptable objects so that it would be easier to add new modules in the future.
Our struggles during development were mainly balance based. As the frame work for the system took up most of the development time, we had to quickly come up with ways to balance the mechanisms. I balanced stats like Ammo Cost and Firerate as well as utilising the roguelike genre and playing with RNG for more overpowered mechanisms. This allowed us to keep wacky builds and obscure them through RNG.
Enemy Design
Overview: The initial combat concept was that of a hoard shooter. I wanted players to grow from struggling to kill 1 enemy to having a power fantasy of clearing rooms with ease. The final vertical slice had 4 enemy archetypes with an extra 2 alpha variants.
Hoard Enemy
The hoard enemy is the main enemy encounter and can appear in large groups.
Design Goal: I wanted a versatile base enemy that would roam in large groups and be satisfying to kill.
Versatility: For each enemy I designed flow charts for their behaviour. I designed abilities for the hoard that would control difficulty for instance these two abilities:
Heavy Attack: Used when a player is standing still to keep players moving.
Pounce: Enemies at the back of the pack will fly in the air to attack the player.​​
Group Behaviour: I wanted the hoard to act as a Hive Mind which both challenged the player and made it easier in some cases.
​
Tokens: Abilities couldn't be used unless a token was available, this meant that players wouldn't be overwhelmed by large groups.
​
Alternate Pathing: Enemies will randomly take a longer path to cut off players, forcing players to change their pathing.​
Kill Satisfaction: The hoard had a dismemberment system that would allow players to target limbs. I wanted the system to have both visual and mechanical feedback: shooting a leg would slow enemies and shooting arms would disable attacks. We made sure to add lots of gory sound effects for juice.
The Brute
The Brute is a mini boss that becomes enraged when shot.
Design Goal: The team wanted a mini boss. This enemy had to pose a bigger threat than the base enemies. But I wanted some mechanic unique to this enemy.
Brute Design: A lot of mini bosses in games are base enemies with inflated health. I wanted the brute to be unique from other mini bosses.​ I came up with a unique core mechanic inspired by the character concepts and their harmless looking nature.​
Core Mechanic: If you didn't shoot the brute it would be slow and do less damage. Once shot however, it would become enraged and have increased health and damage. This gave players progression through knowledge, experienced players would know to prioritise other targets before facing the brute.​
Microphone Head
This enemy is a non-lethal supporting enemy that slows and disorients the player.
Design Goal: I wanted to design a unique enemy based on the rough concept of someone with a microphone head.
Backstory: This was a reversed design process for the microphone head. I usually designed an archetype and got concept artists to come up with their visuals. But the design of this character was so strong, I knew it would have to be themed around sound.​
Prioritisation: If I wanted to follow the theme of prioritisation from the brute. I decided the enemy could create a stun that would be non lethal. I gave it high health and made it fairly slow. This meant that players could decide to prioritise other targets but risk getting stunned.​
When this enemy was fully implemented, I directed a short teaser trailer to capture the feel of the Microphone Head. This was the first repeater roulette trailer.
Spider Head
The spider head was a fast moving exploding enemy.
Design Goal: I wanted to design a highly dangerous squishy enemy around body horror that players had to prioritise over other targets.
Spider Head Design: I always have a core memory of the tickers in gears of war. I felt they were incredibly dangerous and could end a player that wasn't paying attention.​
Gears of War 2 [Epic Games, 2008]
Core Mechanic: This was the most simple mechanically. These spiders had the same hoard pathfinding and would explode when close to the player. I added an explosion delay to allow attentive players to move away. I gave them low health but, as they were really fast and small​ they were still challenging to players.
System Design
Design Goal: We wanted to create lightweight progression systems that would fit in a roguelike genre. And support the combat systems already within the game.
My Contributions: I worked on both the shop and perk system, as well as working on a dynamic room difficulty system that can increase enemy health and spawns in later floors.
Perk Design
The perk system provided player upgrades. Each perk featured a three-tier upgrade system.
Design Goal: We wanted to add another route to progression. Upgrading player stats and coax the player into trying fun playstyles with perk builds focusing on specific strategies.
Design Problem: During playtesting, we were noticing certain mechanics within the combat sandbox weren't being used.​
Perk Builds: Mechanics weren't being utilised by players. To push players towards using more interesting features, I created a build chart of perks that could create a build around these features. For example, the block and parry feature wasn't being utilised so we added perks like "Dead Strong: every third block is an instant parry" which opened players up to the idea of both blocking and parrying.
Perk Upgrades: We wanted players to invest in a build and so we decided that perks would have a tiered upgrade system. The shop would only have a set amount of perks available, but once you bought an item it would be available to upgrade with each shop visit. This allowed us to lock strong perks behind upgrades.
Level Design
Design Goal: We wanted to be able to curate an experience within a procedurally generated environment.
I worked on my levels from Grey Box to Production.
Design Solution: Levels needed to be designed as singular rooms that can then be generated using the procedural floor generator. Each room would be a combat experience separate from one another, but would have to convey the theme of that floor.
Basement Floor
Design Goal: We wanted a claustrophobic, gross introduction to Repeater Roulette.
Basement Floor: The basement serves two roles:
​Tutorial:
the floor had to serve as an introduction to the game. Utilising simple mechanics and combat.
Baseline of the Power Fantasy: The levels should feel claustrophobic establishing the starting point and conveying the weakest the player will ever be.
Designing Basement: Over the course of development I created 12 basement blockouts with 5 making it through to the art pass. On the left is one of my designs, I wanted really tight corridors to convey the claustrophobia. I then broke up the bigger sections with obstacles. Mainly utilising sewer pipes, I used these as both jumping and sliding obstacles.
Casino Level Design
Design Goal: We wanted grandiose combat arenas that allowed for more enemies and juxtaposed the basement floor. Typically, when designing casino rooms, I'd begin with a basic, symmetrical shape and then introduce variations by removing sections or adding obstacles to break up the flow of movement.
I liked to introduce variations within verticality too. I would usually add a second floor, and lower parts of the main floor. This would introduce more points of interest for the player, with the hope of influencing their playstyle.
I also tried to introduce diversity in gameplay, with the bigger casino rooms I would hide enemies and conceal chests with loot within the levels. This was to allow a break in play as casino rooms took longer to clear so players could have a brief respite looking for secrets.
Repeater Roulette
Repeater Roulette is a first-person roguelike horror-shooter with procedurally generated rooms and randomised items. I worked on Repeater Roulette from Pre-Production starting in May 2021 to the Itch Release in June 2022 working in systems, combat and level design.
Repeater Roulette was a Rookies 'Game of The Year' 2022 finalist.
Platform: PC Team Size: 15 Engine: Unity Duration: 1 year [Apr '21 - Jun '22]
Role: Systems, Level and Combat Design
Genres: Horror, FPS, Roguelike