RingCityChampions | Teri Zhang

PROJECT OVERVIEW

RingCity Champions is a 3v3 multiplayer character shooter combined with soccer / american football rulesets.

Position:

Game Director
Game Design Lead

Engine:

Unity

Team Size:

25+

Duration:

04/2023 - 04/2024

Platform:

PC (Mouse & Keyboard)

GDD

Art Bible

Pitch Deck

World Building

WORLD OF RINGCITY CHAMPIONS

GAME TRAILER

In the future, humanity built a Ring-Shaped space station called Ring City for people with Wealth, Power, and sometimes, skills. A new Blood Sport is created to entertain ring city citizens, where people from All Origins can Compete in. Athletes come into the Arena with their own purposes: Revenge, Popularity, Money, and even Pleasure.

OUR TEAM

CORE PILLAR

During the idealization stage of the project, I created Three Game Pillars in order to Define the Core Experience of Ring City Champions. These pillars are design principles that we will follow when designing in-game systems in the future.

GAME RULESET

The ruleset of the game drew insipiration from existing games and sports. There will be Two Teams playing againest each other in the map. The layout is similar with america football / soccer, where there are Two Goals on each side of the map, one for each team. There will also be One Ball that spawns in the center of the map at the start of every round.

When players get to the ball, they can interact with it to pick it up. Then they their Next Objective is to bring the ball towards the other team's goal. This process is when most Combat is going to take place, where one team is trying to eliminate the other team's player in order to Defend and Gain Control over the ball.

When players get close enough to the Goal, they can be able to Shoot the ball into the other team's goal. If they successfully do that, they will get one Score for their team, and then the round resets.

CORE LOOP

The Primary Objective for both teams is to get More Score than the other team within the match timeframe, which means getting the ball into the enemy team's goal more.

The entire match will break into Multiple Rounds, which means the core loop runs Once Every Round.

GAME PROCEDURES

After completing the core loop, I worked on the overall game procedure for the whole match sequence. The follwing chart shows how a whole match will play out and serves as a refernece for the programmers while developing in engine.

There are Four Main Beats within the entire game procedure:

Set Up
Match In-Progress (Core Loop & Main Game Experience)
Special Scenario
Match Resolution

PLAYER ACTIONS

Player Actions are similar to existing character shooter games, where player will be able to control their character's movement, use their weapon and abilities in combat, and interact with the ball.

There are Four Main Catagories of player actions:

Movement
1. Walk & Run
2. Jump
Ball & Interactions
1. Ball Pick Up
2. Ball Shoot
Combat
1. Aim
2. Shoot
3. Use Abilities
Other
1. UI Interaction

CHARACTER SYSTEM

The game features a Diverse roster of characters, each with their own Unique Abilities and Playstyles. Each character has their unique weapon, two to three abilities (Passive ability or abilities that need to be activated), and one ultimate ability.

The character system is designed around Five Main Classes: Defender, Striker, Sniper, Brawler, and Support. Each Champion is classified into one of these categories based on their Abilities and Strengths:

Defenders are typically characters that plays Defensive and have abilities that Stop Ememies or the ball. They often lack of mobility and good at controlling areas.

Strikers are typically characters that focuses on Manuevering around enemies. Most of them have movement abilities that requires some certain skill level to master. At the same time, they are relativly Fragile.

Snipers are characters that focuses on Eliminating single enemy from a long distance. They often lack the ability to fight close ranged combats but often have movement or trap abilities that can prevent enemies from approching them.

Brawlers focuses on Close Ranged Combats. They often have abilities that controls the enemy and keep them within a close distance.

Supports focuses on Granting Bonuses to their allies. They often rely on playing around other teammates since they are relativly weaker in combat.

Catagorizing characters not only help player to better understand them, but also give future character designers a basic principle on the playstyle of the new character that they will be designing.

CHARACTER ABILITIES

In Ring City Champion, character abilities is designed to offer players a range of Tactical Options to use in combat. Each hero has a set of abilities, which are divided into two to three basic abilities / passive abilities and one ultimate ability.

Basic abilities are designed to use throught the entire game. These abilities serves for different tactical purposes, such as gaining information of the other team, dealing damage to enemy champions, or controlling certain environments. Basic Abilities have a cooldown timer.

Passive abilities are activities that are either always active or they does not require any resources to be activated. These abilities does not have cooldowns. Theses abilities are designed to be strongly connected with the playstyle of the character.

Ultimate abilities are the most powerful ability that the characters has. It charges over time and also over some player actions. They are designed to be used only a few times during a match and they can be able to turn the tides of combats.

CHARACTER DESIGN PROCESS - BLIZZ

(PAGE WORK IN PROGRESS)

CHARACTER DESIGN PROCESS - FLEA

(PAGE WORK IN PROGRESS)

GAME PRODUCTION

As the Project Lead, a major part of my responsibilities falls into Team Management, which includes:

Set up and Revise Production Plans for every sprint (School Term)
Creating Weekly Tasks List with other department leads via Hansoft
Planning playtest event and organizing feedbacks
Provide Feedback on weekly progresses
Connect different departments for collboration
Recruit new members