Beach
Troopers mod
What I've worked on:
What I've worked on:
•Four scripted
game modes
•Unit class design
•Weapon and (kitbash) unit art
•Unit class design
•Weapon and (kitbash) unit art
This
project was an end in search of a means. I had
conceptualized several different game modes I wanted to see tried out,
but I'd already released my "big mod" (Dark Times II), and didn't want
to simply graft these on as a patch/update.
What
I did instead was make a small-scale mod that served two purposes -
one, let me publish a couple of game modes together in a single pack so
that I could get some player feedback on them, and two, create a chance
for me to practice a few modeling techniques I wasn't very adept at.
The
modeling work was decent. It wasn't inspired, but it helped me learn
and practice a skill-set I don't use very often. That wasn't what got
me excited about this mod. What got me excited was the chance to try
out these new game modes. I had three - a base-attack variant of the
basic "conquest" mode in the game, an AI-tug-of-war mode, and a
wave-based survival mode (there was also a perfunctory team deathmatch
mode).
To set some context, this mod was published five years after the game's release, and by this point, most consumers of mods used them exclusively in single player. Because of that, the modes in this were designed to take a game that works best in a multiplayer setting and enhance it for the single player.
Of those three modes, the first one was the least remarkable. It was a basic conquest (capture the points) mode with a "twist." The idea was that each team had an unassailable "base" point that couldn't be taken for most of the match. This meant that, instead of the control of the map circling around throughout the match, there would be a tendency for each side to take ownership of one part. The intent here was that it would be more difficult to push the balance of control away from the 50% mark for either team.
The second mode - "Soak the Wookiee" - was my favorite, conceptually,
and, based on player reaction, the crowd favorite as well. This was (as
mentioned above) an "AI-tug-of-war." What I did here was again use the
"conquest" mode as the context, but changed the focus of the mode from
teams splitting up and taking individual points to teams focusing on a
single target - the AI Wookiee.
At the beginning of each match, a neutral AI unit was spawned at a central location. Teams could take "possession" of this AI unit by sufficiently damaging him (he was effectively invincible, so the damage was just a threshold). Once a team took ownership of the AI, he would seek out enemy control points and try to capture them. En route, the other team would try and capture the AI back, which would lead to a push-and-pull as the AI steadily encroached on either team's objectives. In this mode, the neutral AI was the only unit capable of capturing points, so the conquest mode was truly window dressing - it only served as a metric of the level of success either team was having in controlling the AI.
The final mode was an interesting one - to me - but I think I made it too dense to fit in really well with the others. I ended up using it as a virtual dumping ground for several ideas I'd tried out previously (in whole or in part), including a hidden-class-based level-up system, a player-controllable grappling hook system, and a progressively more difficult endurance challenge. The final mode (Survival mode) was an exclusively single-player mode that set the player against waves of enemies (virtually identical to the wave mode in Dark Times II). The new addition, primarily, was an experience-point based advancement system that allowed the player to gain access to new weapons based on his use of lower-level weapons.
This mod can be downloaded at:
Gamefront
To set some context, this mod was published five years after the game's release, and by this point, most consumers of mods used them exclusively in single player. Because of that, the modes in this were designed to take a game that works best in a multiplayer setting and enhance it for the single player.
Of those three modes, the first one was the least remarkable. It was a basic conquest (capture the points) mode with a "twist." The idea was that each team had an unassailable "base" point that couldn't be taken for most of the match. This meant that, instead of the control of the map circling around throughout the match, there would be a tendency for each side to take ownership of one part. The intent here was that it would be more difficult to push the balance of control away from the 50% mark for either team.
At the beginning of each match, a neutral AI unit was spawned at a central location. Teams could take "possession" of this AI unit by sufficiently damaging him (he was effectively invincible, so the damage was just a threshold). Once a team took ownership of the AI, he would seek out enemy control points and try to capture them. En route, the other team would try and capture the AI back, which would lead to a push-and-pull as the AI steadily encroached on either team's objectives. In this mode, the neutral AI was the only unit capable of capturing points, so the conquest mode was truly window dressing - it only served as a metric of the level of success either team was having in controlling the AI.
The final mode was an interesting one - to me - but I think I made it too dense to fit in really well with the others. I ended up using it as a virtual dumping ground for several ideas I'd tried out previously (in whole or in part), including a hidden-class-based level-up system, a player-controllable grappling hook system, and a progressively more difficult endurance challenge. The final mode (Survival mode) was an exclusively single-player mode that set the player against waves of enemies (virtually identical to the wave mode in Dark Times II). The new addition, primarily, was an experience-point based advancement system that allowed the player to gain access to new weapons based on his use of lower-level weapons.
This mod can be downloaded at:
Gamefront