Gameplay Trailer
overview
“Pac-Mania” is a multiplayer Capture the Flag map designed for Unreal Tournament 3. The main design goal I had in mind was the idea of a Capture the Flag game with a varied and unpredictable flow. The major gameplay mechanic has to do with the flags: they are mounted on large ghosts from Pac-Man, which move around the play space.
DEVELOPMENT INFOGame: Unreal Tournament 3
Engine: Unreal Editor 3 Development Time: 3 weeks (100 hours) Game Type: Capture the Flag (12-16 players) Playtime: 15 minutes |
DESIGN GOALSGhost Flag mechanic: players must damage ghosts to reach the flags
Recreate the classic Pac-Man level in Unreal Tournament 3 Multiple tiers of gameplay |
Screenshots
Design Challenges
- Create mobile flags via matinee and attachments
- Create damagable ghost logic
- Use UI to indicate when a ghost is vulnerable
- Model, unwrap and texture a Pac-Man ghost
- Model, unwrap and texture a Pac-Man cherry that gives a random power-up to the player
- Create a custom Pac-Pellet entity that adds 1 HP to the player with Unreal Script
SCRIPTING
MAPS
Design
pac-man
This map did not start out as Pac-Man themed at all. My original plan for this map was simply a moving flag in an otherwise standard Unreal Tournament 3 level. I don't even remember exactly where the Pac-Man idea came from. Regardless, the feedback to a Pac-Man themed Capture the Flag map was so overwhelmingly positive that I had to run with it and put it an much Pac-Man as I possibly could.
I needed a method of transporting the flag around the world, using the ghosts was an obvious choice. However, some of the buildings made it hard to find where the ghosts were located. I attached a particle effect to the top of the ghosts in order to make them more noticeable from a distance. The bouncing cherry in the center of the map gives a random power-up to the player that collects it. Pac-pellets line the streets, just like in the original arcade game. These elements were added to hammer home the Pac-Man theme even more. |
Ghosts
Originally, the ghosts could only be "harmed" by standing on one of a few switches, located where the large Pac-pellets are in the arcade game. I did this to force teamwork, one player must stand on the switch while his teammates went straight to the ghost to capture the flag. It worked really well, but communication was a big problem. Another issue was that most players wanted to shoot the ghosts to harm them. Eventually I decided to take out the switches and focus solely on harming the ghosts to reveal the flag. Finally I added a new UI scene to clearly convey to all players which ghosts are currently stopped.
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post Mortem
This was an interesting map to work on, to say the least. The feedback I received on this project was overwhelmingly positive, my testers seem to like it more than I do. Pac-Mania received the most positive ratings of any mod I worked on, second only to Starflight. It is unusual, because Pac-Mania has by far the least amount of scripting, both in amount and complexity, than all of my other projects, but the idea itself seems more outlandish than it actually is.
Communication was a big problem before I decided to change from switches to weapon fire as the method of harming the ghosts. Another problem are the bots, they absolutely hate moving flags. This was an issue I noticed near the end of development and had no time to fix. I don't consider it to be a big issue though, because multiplayer FPS games are almost always played with other humans.
The Pac-Man theme worked out really well, far more than I expected. The more Pac-Man elements I added, the better the feedback became.
If I had more time, I'd like to take the ghosts off their preset matinee paths to and replace it with simulated AI movement. For example when a ghost reaches a junction it would make a decision as to which way to go.
Communication was a big problem before I decided to change from switches to weapon fire as the method of harming the ghosts. Another problem are the bots, they absolutely hate moving flags. This was an issue I noticed near the end of development and had no time to fix. I don't consider it to be a big issue though, because multiplayer FPS games are almost always played with other humans.
The Pac-Man theme worked out really well, far more than I expected. The more Pac-Man elements I added, the better the feedback became.
If I had more time, I'd like to take the ghosts off their preset matinee paths to and replace it with simulated AI movement. For example when a ghost reaches a junction it would make a decision as to which way to go.