Rage Quit

Level Designer

Project Information

This is a PC game.
Team size: 14 students.
Duration: 8 weeks.
Tools used: Unreal Engine.
Role: Level Designer.
Link to game: Rage Quit on Itch.io.

The two phased game

Rage Quit was supposed to have two main components to its gameplay.

A planning stage in which the player walks around and places dynamite.
An action stage in which the player blows up as much as possible before the timer runs out.

A big problem here was figuring out how to encourage the player to not immediately start blowing things up. To achieve this goal I had to create each level following a specific rule: "Your starting location should allow you to see each aspect of the map while avoiding the enemies."

This rule helped greatly reduce the level design burden. That being said; it did not cure the issue, it merely made the issue less visible to the players.

An explosive problem

Players are expected to throw bombs and destroy as much of the level as possible. There was one issue however, floating objects.

Explosions in Rage Quit are not cone shaped. Instead, they are actual circles. As a result, it is possible to destroy a desk, but not the object on it. This posed to be an issue because desks are often full of smaller objects that serve to give the player some extra points when they destroy them.

To make things worse, friendly fire is enabled in the game. During early playtests players would often complain that they died because a bomb "randomly exploded". Upon closer inspection it was found that these small flying objects would collide with the bomb and explode in the players face.

This was solved by changing the importance of each object. Instead of making desks the main source of points, we decided to stack boxes in bigger clusters. As a result the player would no longer try to destroy all desks which in turn allowed us to make them a less important part of the game by removing the small objects placed on them.

These changes made the game a lot more fun for players and prevented surprise deaths.

Above: Objects blocking the navmesh for AI opponents.
Below: Desks of doom - Sometimes the player does not destroy the screens. As a result they remain flying in the air.

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