UPDATE 2/1/2020

Its been a month, since I’ve posted a update. And this past month has been crazy! Moving to Kirkland, then starting work was a lot all at once but it turned out okay. Midwinter is even better than I thought it would be. It’s been an amazing first month working on Scavengers, and I love the game. I’m excited to see where the game goes and very excited to have a part in making it.

Side Projects

And even though it’s been a full month, I forgot how much I like relaxing after work hahaha. I haven’t worked on any of my side projects since I started work. That might change in the future, but for now I’m putting them all on hold. The only stuff I’ve been doing on the side is drawing to relax.

Drawing

I’m hoping to increase my drawing skills on the side because I like relaxing while drawing and listening to music. Drawing in Illustrator and hopefully working on some interesting map designs.

These are just a few of the things I did in illustrator.

Fun Stuff

I’ve been playing games in my free time, now that I have the time to relax. I played through Dark Souls 3 on the PC, which was really fun to try and speed run the game. I also have been playing lots of strategy games, TFT, Legends of Runeterra, and a bit of Hearthstone. I also am going to start playing more / other battle royal type games. I have been having fun with Apex recently, and am going to start playing some lesser known ones soon.

I’ve been trying to read books as well. Its nice to read a book before bed, even if it sounds like a old person thing to do, its surprisingly relaxing. I’m reading this book called “Mistborn” and another book about Level Design.

TLDR;

I’ve been having fun working on Scavengers / working at Midwinter. This month has been a wild ride with all the stuff going on in the world. I need to figure out a better way to relax after work, I find myself thinking about work all the time. Thanks for reading even though I didn’t have much to share.

UPDATE 1/5/2020

Happy New Year!

Haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been busy. I got hired as a Level Designer at Midwinter Entertainment, working on a game called Scavengers. I am very excited to start and have been very busy preparing. I start work tomorrow (1/6/2020). I also moved to the Kirkland area with my two best friends. I’m ready for the new year.

Website

As you can see I have made some changes to my website, hopefully making it look a bit nicer and clean. I also want to use my website and blog every now and then as a way to keep myself busy in my spare time. So I might be doing more art related things, like streaming on twitch, or more blog posts and game reviews.

RPG Line Art

I haven’t posted much of my sketches, because they are mostly fan art of hearthstone cards. But doing these line sketches is really relaxing for me, and as I get better I might do more on my own in the future.

Scavengers

So as I said in the begining I am working at an actual studio now, so my other project work will most likly slow down. If you want to keep up with the game or want to sign up for the playtest check out the website: https://scavengersgame.com/

Thanks!

I’m happy to finally have a job in the industry and am excited to see where this takes me. The game i’m working on is awesome, and that’s what matters most to me. I’m in a great spot in my life and I hope it only goes up from here. Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting me.

Update 11/30/19

Intro

This is just going to be a quick update going over a few things. I’ve been working on my level design process over the past two weeks. My new level designs have been done in unreal by using a picture and trying to recreate it as best as I can.

In my previous update I said how I was going to work on my game “Hunterz Die”. But some things have come up and I haven’t been working on it as much as I would like.

Other then my level designs I have been working really hard on my D&D campaign. I will most likely in the future work on publishing an updated version of the rule book on a TableTop site and as a mod for Table Top Simulator.

Level Designs

Here are a few of my level designs, I downloaded some assets in unreal and have been having fun creating scenes with them.

Art Station

I made a art station today and hopefully it can be another place for me to continue to post things i’m working on. I am liking art station just from my quick use of it, and it has been a great place for me to get some extra inspiration. www.artstation.com/alpental (Click on the image below)

< Art Station >

Speed Level Design

I will hopefully be posting more of these as I get more ideas for good environments.

Outro

Thanks for reading!

I have some good things in the works so I will hopefully have another update in the coming weeks. The job search has been tough but I might have some good news soon.

Thanks again for reading, let me know if there are any environments or 3D scenes that you would like to see!

Update 11/14/19

INTRO

I’ve been doing a lot of stuff recently, and I figure that this is a good place to post all the things that I have been up to. I don’t quite have a job yet, but while I’ve been searching and applying I have also made time to work on lots of other things that I am excited about.

Firstly, I’m working on making a game. The concept of the game I have had for a while, buT the main point of making this game is to show off my System Design skills. And to have a game potentially published on phones.

Secondly, I’m having a lot of fun creating and playing my own Table Top Role Playing Game (TTRPG). I made a TTRPG for a project in school. But I am completely remaking it into a much better version and hope to maybe publish it onto a RPG website or something similar as a free PDF in the future.

Thirdly, I am working on fleshing out my Level Design skills. I have spent a lot time telling companies that I am good at level design, but with really nothing to show off. That’s why I hope to start making scenes and showcase what I can really do as a level designer. And might begin to stream the process on twitch.

TLDR: I’m keeping myself busy.

Below I will go into detail on all the things I’m doing for those that are interested, and i’m sure the pictures will help :)

Hunterz Die

A work in progress title for a game that I have been working on for a bit. So far I am barely out of the brainstorming process. But I am making quick work of my Unity prototype and soon to be first playable.

Pitch: A rogue-like turn-based RPG where players fight using spirit animals represented by two customizable dice. The dice can have their sides removed and replaced for better or different actions. You play as a Viking Spirit warrior, on “The Great Hunt”. Each hunt is different, so each run of the rogue-like experience will have you tracking down a new monster every time. Inspired by great rogue-likes such as Slay the Spire, and a board game called Die Forge.

I am making a commitment to getting my first playable done BY: 11/29/19 THANKSGIVING. And maybe having a demo out on my website.

The first playable should have the three main part of my game boxed out with basic game play.

1) Turn-Based combat system 2) Hex grid over-world map 3) Dice customization.

TTRPG - Weapons of the Deep

A version 2.0 of my RPG should be available on my website, but since playing multiple times with friends I have decided to do a complete combat overhaul. The overhaul will include added classes, skill trees, new equipment, and progression.

The main reason for doing this overhaul is to make the expereince more fun for us using Table Top Simulator. And I plan on releasing a version of the game on to it when done.

For now I am working on the skill trees and classes, as part of my passion of working on Systems and creating a good and fun experience for my TTRPG group :)

Level Design - Future Work

I have been spending a lot of time working on systems for both of these two projects above, but my level design skills are in need of a bit of love. That’s why hopefully if people are interested I would like to maybe do some speed designs of landscapes and still camera scenes for fun. I also think this would be a good way to show off my skills for employers.

So PLEASE, if you have any interest in me making speed level designs. Let me know, thanks :)

Blog Posts - Future Work

I have been trying to spend at lease one day out of the week to write on my blog post, to mixed success. I end up not liking the things that I write, or getting a bit of IMPOSTOR syndrome when talking about things. So for the next few posts I’m going to keep it to opinion pieces about designs I like and enjoy.

Planned Posts:

• Luigi’s Mansion Level Design Genius.

• Hearthstone Battlegrounds, things that are really cool.

• The FPS genre and the addition of randomness

• Auto-Battler goodies (something good about every AB)

• Fantastic draft system in Legends of Runterra.

Wrapping it Up!

To end these update posts, I would like to have a sweet little statement, where I am personally / mentally, and what games I am playing. This is mainly just for me to look back on, like a journal. But maybe its fun for anyone who got this far :)

I am so grateful to have graduated from DigiPen. It still doesn’t even feel real. But this time I’ve been spending at my mom’s jobless has really been draining. I just want to get out there and make games! Every rejection from companies really begin to pile up on me mentally. After getting a particularly bad rejection last week, I wasn’t in a very good spot mentally. But, hopefully sticking my head down in my work can distract me. And if you got this far in my update, thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day :)

Games I have been playing are: Hearthstone Battlegrounds, Team Fight Tactics Set 2, League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra, Outer Worlds, World of Warcraft: Classic

I would love some feedback on any of the stuff I am working on. So please message me directly or leave a comment. Even if its just to say you are excited for something of mine, or if you have a piece of criticism. Thanks again!

My Addiction to Teamfight Tactics (LoL Auto Chess), Review, and Virtual board games.

What is TFT?

In my own words: Teamfight Tactics (TFT) is a auto battle game where the objective to built the strongest army of units and items in order to eliminate the competition and be the last team remaining.

Have you ever played pokemon, and considered what pokemon to bring out on your next adventure. Our what arrangement of pokemon would work best against a particular gym? Well that’s the feeling almost every second in a 30-45 minute game of TFT.

You combine units by making pairs of three, into a “2 Star“ unit. Combine three two star units and you get a powerful 3 Star unit.

Items are similar in that you can combine them, but there are many combinations and effects. Each unique combination of two items makes a interesting effect to consider for any team. Things like a morellonomicon can make spells deal burn damage and stop healing.

Why is it fun? Addicting?

The game is fun because of all the decision trees that are constantly going through your head as a player. Should I go brawlers? There are two elementalists that I can buy right now, should I switch my entire team for them? All of these questions and hard choices are made through simple repeated random choices and unit combinations.

These decision trees along side the fact that there is a incentive to hoard gold for interest gives the player a sense of tug and pull. Saving gold for added interest gold at the risk of falling behind on unit power, or spending gold like a mad man to keep a win streak going that also rewards gold.

The game is a delicate balancing act and always reminds me of a thing I learned in film class. The excitement curve that most movies follow is something that happens naturally in every game of TFT. You spend lots of gold? An early rising action to a later fall in power and potential climax of risk. You horde gold and are on the edge of your seat the whole time as your health bar dips below 20%? Either way or if you weren’t following a strategy at all leads to a engaging gameplay experience almost every time.

To be fair the action isnt always the most exciting, and the game is not for everyone as you are basically just watching units fight and micro managing them all. But for the inner strategy lover in me, and my childhood memories of playing many team builder games like pokemon and final fantasy, I’m hooked.

What to learn?

The game has continued support from devs, even after slightly changing target audience.

The systems design supports more player interaction.

The game itself is something that only a virtual board game could do.

Conclusion

I love teamfight tactics, and will continue to come back and see how the game is supported. I want to see the iterations of PURELY virtual board games, in ways that have not been explored yet. There is more to see and explore in games that push what it means to be a virtual board game. I love games like mario party, hearthstone, and TFT that could only be on a computer due to either the controls, or the computing power to support the game. And I think there is more yet to explore.

Dino Delivery - Post Mortem

Dino Delivery - Intro

Dino Delivery is a third person adventure/puzzle game about a boy and his dinosaur best friend and their quest to recover the lost mail of their town. (Download Link coming soon)

A 28 person team (Including volunteers) that I worked on over my senior year at DigiPen. The team worked on this game for a whole two years, which not many DigiPen projects do.

I as a level designer and interaction designer was tasked with scooping down the world, polishing and implementing new excited puzzles into the world, and just helping in general with bugs and implementation.

Post Mortem Goals

The goals of this post mortem is to review and understand how our project succeeded and where we fell flat. During all parts of development where could we improve and most importantly where can we learn and do better in the future.

Post Mortem Thoughts

Planning and Organization

Some of the best parts of being a part of this project was just how organized and and well thought out our development time was. Our producer, Jeremy McCarty, was by far the best producer I’ve had at my time at DigiPen. Utilizing a waterfall production pipeline to get tasks done. Being a scrum master. And using lots of extra resources externally well like Jira, Slack, and Slite. All of these things combined made Jeremy a great person to work with and a real leader.

When we hit the fourth semester of our development we hit a bit of a slow-down period. Jeremy had graduated earlier than most all of us on the team and we had to pick up the slack for him. Even though we didn’t have much to do in this final semester we really had a hard time sitting down all as a group and tackling some of the last few things. We got through it in the end, but not as smoothly as when Jeremy was here.

Clarity in Vision, Goals, and Systems

The three main parts to fully understanding a project and being able to work without any restrictions are. Clarity in vision what the project should look or feel like. Clarity in goals what the people want out of the project. Lastly, clarity in systems how the devs can understand what they are working on and how to do things.

Our clarity of vision was very clear as having our art lead Taylor having fantastic vision and hold on what our game was meant to look like. I never interacted or overheard any of the art meetings but she did a great job at making sure all the assets added to the game were up to standards. She also did a great job at letting or narrative designer Serria take control of the narrative and give feedback when needed.

Our clarity of goals is very clear in all of our industry goals being met and all people working on the project. We were able to have such a big team because of the leadership of Jeremy. This let us all work on the things in the game that we really felt passionate about and want to do in the industry.

Clarity of systems is one of the areas that I feel we fell short on. Joining the team halfway through development is a big downside to understanding the systems. But mainly Jeremy being so good at almost everything can turn into a downside. During the third semester development (Fall 2018) we had a lot to do in a short time. This became a problem of Jeremy being stretched really thin. Almost everyone on the team looked to Jeremy if they had a problem with a system they didn’t understand. Overall we got through it, but I’m sure we stressed out Jeremy a bit more than we needed to.

Success Criteria

Lastly our main way to determine if we succeeded is yet to be determined. Some of the goals that we had a team are yet to be met and others we have already succeeded in. One of the areas that most of us have already succeeded in is having a great portfolio piece. Like I’ve already mentioned most of the team got to work on what they wanted to while improving the game.

Some of the things that we will need to wait on are yet to happen yet. We had some early goals of getting our game on x-box, but when those plans fell through we looked to get our game on steam. We are still in the process of getting on steam, so we will see. And lastly we would like our game to get some outside recognition, gong to PAX or GDC. This will most likely need to happen in the later year because we just shipped. But we are hopeful and look towards the future.

Conclusion

Overall Dino Delivery is one of my favorite projects that I worked on at DigiPen. The whole team worked fantastic together and I would recommend any of them in the future to work with again. I am proud of our game and team, and am excited to see where we can ship and what people think of it when they can download and play the final release. Thank you.

-Tony Benson

Post-Production on Dino Delivery

PRE-PRODUCTION

JOINING THE TEAM IN POST PRODUCTION POLISH STAGE MEANT THAT THE TEAM ALREADY HAD A SOLID PROJECT IN PLACE. THE REASON FOR ME JOINING WAS TO HELP POLISH THE MAP AND TAKE OVER THE PUZZLE DESIGN AND PLACEMENT IN THE GAME.

CATCH UP

JOINING A TEAM MID DEVELOPMENT MEANS THERE ARE SOME THINGS TO CATCH-UP ON. EVEN FOR A TEAM WORKING IN UNREAL THERE ARE LOST OF THINGS THAT CHANGE FROM TEAM TO TEAM.

CUSTOM SCRIPTS, BLUEPRINT ORGANIZATION, FILE NAMING AND ORGANIZATION, AND MORE.

RE-WORK / CUT CONTENT

PART OF JOINING THE TEAM WAS TO HELP BRING THE GAME TO A STATE OF PROFESSIONAL POLISH. ONE OF OUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES WAS GOING TO BE FILLING THIS HUGE WORLD WITH THINGS TO DO AND SEE. OUR PLAN WAS TO CUT PART OF THE WORLD OUT IN FAVOR OF KEEPING THE GOOD CONTENT THAT WAS THERE. THIS WAS MY BIGGEST TASK JOINING THE TEAM. AND OVERALL WENT REALLY GOOD.

FIRST I DREW OUT THE CONTENT THAT WAS IN THE GAME, THEN STARTED BRAINSTORMING WAYS TO CUT CONTENT. AFTER THE MAP WAS PLANNED OUT, I STARTED IN UNREAL CUTTING AND SHIFTING THE WORLD AROUND THE NEW PLAN.

DEVELOP

AFTER CUTTING MOST OF THE OLD WORLD WE HAD A BETTER IDEA FOR WHAT THE GAME WAS GOING TO LOOK LIKE. I CAM DOWN TO PLACING NEW ASSETS IN THE WORLD AND DOING A FIRST PASS ON SET DRESSING THE WORLD.

SOME OF MY TASKS IN THIS STAGE WAS IMPLEMENTING QUEST LINES FOR THE PLAYER IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE MAP. STARTING AT THE MARKET AREA, AND CONTINUING ALL THE WAY TO THE END.

POLISH!

THE FINAL PUSH FOR POLISH WAS ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR BUG FIXING AND GOLD LEVEL SET-DRESSING. WE GAVE UP ON JIRA STYLE BUG REPORTS IN FAVOR OF QUICK ITERATION BOUNTY BOARD STYLE BUG LISTS. THIS HELPED WHEN MOVING FROM BUG TO BUG FIXING SMALL THINGS IN THE WORLD OR RANDOM BLUEPRINTS THAT GOT BROKEN.

OUR FINAL MONTH OF PLAY-TESTING AND BUG FIXING WAS A STRESSFUL ONE, FIXING FATAL ERRORS, WORKING ON PERFORMANCE AND GETTING NEW THINGS IN THE GAME CONSTANTLY THAT WOULD BREAK THINGS IN UNKNOWN AND INTERESTING WAYS. BUT AT THE END WE SHIPPED A PRODUCT WE ARE NOT YET HAPPY WITH.

WE ARE CONTINUING FOR ONE MORE SEMESTER, (4 MONTHS) TO WORK OUT ALL THE EXTRA KINKS AND SHIP SOMETHING THAT WILL MAKE EVERYONE PROUD.

4 Act Level Design In Synthalaxy

The game that I worked on my spring 2017 semester was a joy to work on. We had a very interesting chance to implement a great level design technique that I learned from a YouTube video. In this video from Mark Brown called "Super Mario 3D World's 4 Step Level Design | Game Maker's Toolkit" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBmIkEvEBtA) he talks about an interesting design technique used for the most recent platformer Mario games. 

The 4 steps in Mark Brown's video are great but don't work the same when you have split the game into 1 World and 4 smaller levels. Because they didn't really work for everything I came up with my own theory/technique. The 4 acts that I came up with to design ANY experience, big or small, go as follows:

1) Intro - The intro act is the most obvious yet the easiest to mess up. The main parts of the intro include teaching the main mechanic or interesting portion of the game/world. Next letting the players get a feel for the game/world. Letting players get a feel for the world is the hardest part, some designers think that the teaching is the main part. Letting players get a feel for whats to come builds anticipation and sets expectations. This portion of the game is usually safe and players generally don't lose or die in this portion.

2) Ride - The ride act is simple and pretty straight forward. The player in this section must use the mechanic or interesting portion of the intro in order to complete the ride act. This gives the player some reinforcement of theme and mechanics setting them up for the next act.

3) Twist - The twist is when we design a portion of the game that the player must use the already taught mechanic in a unique, interesting or different way than previously.  This new twist is also not explicitly taught to the player letting them use their intuition and discovery to solve the puzzle or understand the plot/theme. This is great because it makes the player feel smart when they understand the twist in the plot of a story or solve a puzzle in a way they never thought was possible.

4) Climax - This is the final boss, mastery, challenge level or climax to the plot of the game. All plot has been pointing to this moment and the player must use all of the previously used and taught mechanics to get passed the level or boss. If you skip out on a previously taught mechanic or skill then the player might feel like what they played previously was useless. This is the same when a plot line is not wrapped up in a story. The Mastery act lets the players master the skills taught in order to get a huge pay off and some of the best and most memorable parts in video games are in the climax.

Overall this theory/technique has its flaws, but I think it does a good job at fitting any part of a game. This technique was used when designing the 4 levels to each world in Synthalaxy, as well as the overall world structure for the game. For example world 1 - 1 let you learn movement and pulling enemies in a safe environment (INTRO). World 1 - 2 let you move around in a less safe environment (RIDE). World 1 - 3 introduced the turret enemies, but was still about pulling and killing enemies (TWIST). World 1 - 4 was the final level making you master pulling enemies in an interesting way (CLIMAX). Overall all worlds are structured in the same way.

Thanks for reading my design technique that I learned from designing Synthalaxy. Taking inspiration from both Mark Brown's wonderful video, and some of the narrative techniques taught by my Game Analysis and Theory 211 professor, Boyan Radakovich. 

Here is Synthalaxy available for download: https://games.digipen.edu/games/synthalaxy#.Wd04PGhSzcc

More blog posts to come...