Rian Hamill - Preordained

GAMEPLAY Footage

Preordained is a puzzle game based off classic turn-based tactics games such as XCOM & Final Fantasy Tactics. Designed with the principle of constraint at its core, the game is based off a relatively simple idea: what controls are left to a player in this game style if all unit actions are pre-decided? The answer is core to most puzzle game experiences: order of operation. The result is a mechanically tight puzzle game that challenges the player's logical reasoning & spatial visualisation skills.

As the project's game & level designer, it was my responsibility to ensure we had simple, engaging game mechanics that could be combined to create a broad variety of challenging experiences for the player.

Team Size: 7

My Role: Gameplay & Level Designer

Responsibilities:

● Design, Prototype, & Refine Core Gameplay Mechanics ● Level Creation & In-Engine Implementation

● Scripting Level Design Tools & Gameplay Features in C# ● QA & Stress Testing

● Design Pipeline Creation & Management ● Gameplay Visualisation & User Experience

Prototyping

After conceptualising the game's core concept, I created a basic visual prototype to better illustrate the core gameplay experience to the team.

Following on from the visual prototype, I then went about creating a paper prototype so that I could rapidly iterate upon the game's mechanics. This also allowed me to engage in some very early play testing & to experiment with the optimum number of units per level, objective variety, and a variety of other gameplay features.

Once the core gameplay mechanics were confirmed and solidified, I then began fleshing out the level design process. I began by creating a level planning tool using Unity & C# . This tool allowed me to dynamically place units, obstacles, and tile types. It would automatically number units when added or removed, with each unit bearing a unique letter and number representing their type and quantity. The levels created with this tool could then be saved and converted into fully functional levels.

Action Preview

A prototype I made early in the process testing out various ways I could preview the actions each unit would take.

The finalised action preview effect for the same unit. The outline defines the affected tiles, while the shifting arrows are used to indicate rotation direction.

We discovered through play testing that previewing each unit's action would be essential to preventing players from becoming frustrated with the game's mechanics. I decided to create a preview effect that could be triggered upon hovering over each unit/its associated card. This presented an interesting design challenge: allow the player too much freedom to visualise each unit's action, and the game would essentially solve itself - provide too little guidance, and the action preview would be effectively worthless. While I briefly experimented with a ghosting effect that would play the action that each unit would take, I inevitably settled on a simpler outline/line trace system, that inferred each unit's ability, rather than playing it out. This provided the player with visual support in each level without outright solving the puzzle.

Another design challenge that emerged during development related to unit identification. While we hoped to have a variety of unit designs to help distinguish between units of the same type, this proved unfeasible given our limited number of artists and the time available to us. To alleviate this issue, I created a unit numbering system by assigning a unique number to each unit and scripting a system whereby each unit's number would be rendered over it upon pressing the "Unit Numbers" button. While an inelegant solution, it effectively addressed what may have otherwise been a point of frustration for players.

Screenshots