Cole Williams - Level Design and System Design
Radnormal is a 4-Player tabletop co-op combat game that I co-created with on a 5 person team called CODE: Z for my DES220 class. Radnormal takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where nuclear annihilation has occurred. Within this world there exists a team of specialist that help eradicate abominations created by the radiation from the nukes to keep any survivors safe. Players must choose a character and work with others as a team to eradicate as many paranormal abominations from the map as possible before a leftover nuke detonates
Project Info:
Course: Systems Design I
School: DigiPen Institute of Technology
Team Name: CODE: Z
My Roles:
Level Designer
Systems Designer
RadNormal Box Contents
System Design
As a system designer for RadNormal, my contributions included:
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Conceptualizing playable characters and abilities
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Development of abomination characters behavior, health, kill, and capture systems
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Built mechanic for nuke timer
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Constructed radiation system
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Contributed in point collection system
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Created, updated, and managed the rulebook
Playable Characters
There are four playable characters within RadNormal that each play differently while contributing to the team in their own ways. Something I wanted for the player characters was to interact with the environment in interesting ways. Examples of this are the ability for The Tank to carry radiation sources to a different location or The Attacker's ability to break cracked walls. While these were interesting mechanics, through playtesting I realized the incentive to perform some of these actions wasn't quite there. To remedy this we created the Objectives system to give each character a bigger incentive to perform certain actions. By completing side objectives shown on the player cards, players can earn additional points for their team.
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Abomination Characters
The abomination characters are the enemies within the game that the players can encounter. Abominations are combative and will attack players within their zone of attack. Abominations are unable to enter the field until a player engages an encounter tile. Each abomination attacks differently but all stay within their encounter tile and can only attack the tiles next to or diagonal of them. Different abominations also have different requirements for killing and capturing them. The mechanic I was excited to develop was the capture versus kill system. Through the use of tranquilizers, the players are able to bring down an abomination's capture points low enough to capture them for extra points. Enemies cannot be tranquilized until their health reaches a certain threshold that is indicated on their given card. The only player character that can capture an abomination is The Trapper, so if they are incapacitated or not close by, killing the abomination for less points might be a better option to save time.
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The Nuke
Another mechanic I implemented was the nuke timer. I created this mechanic to help speed up the gameplay, force players to make decisions, and give a way to end the game within a certain amount of time. The counter is decreased by one every time a round ends. A round ends after an abomination has taken its turn, then each player in order as indicated by their player type. When the nuke reaches zero, the game ends. There are multiple exits within the map that the players can use to escape the nuke at any point during the game. Additionally, this gives a way for players to end the game early if they want. If two or more players escape the map before the nuke goes off, the entire team escapes. If two or more players are left on the map when the nuke goes off, everyone loses.
Radiation
The radiation mechanic is another feature that I came up with for RadNormal to provide an additional hazard within the environment other than abominations. Radiation reduces your total health count and replaces a health square with a radiation square. Radiation is gained by standing next to a radiation source at the end of a players turn. Radiation sources can be moved by The Tank and cannot provide radiation to tiles on the other side of a wall. Radiation resistance can be provided by The Medic to prevent one point of radiation per radiation resistance token a player is holding.