My Role: Level Designer
What is The Afflicted?
Key Features 
- Placeable cover and barricades
- 3 teams
- RTS-style resource management
- Voting system for in-game upgrades
- Parkour Movement system
The Afflicted is a 3rd person shooter that pits 3 teams against each other in struggle for resources and power within a crumbling society.The Afflicted was developed from the beginning around the concept of player control. First glances might give the impression of a typical third person shooter, but a few concepts set it apart. It’s a game of cooperative team-building. Players are scored on the collection of resources that allow them to shape the growth of their team. A vital element of success is the creation of structures and barricades that can be placed at the whims of the players. A free-form movement system allows for creative navigation and evasion. The goal is to provide a refined, current-generation shooter that still manages to implement the kinds of choices that bring players back for more.
The Afflicted: Mechanics Overview
Overview: The Afflicted is a 3rd person shooter that pits 3 teams against each other in struggle for resources and power within a crumbling society. The Afflicted was developed from the beginning around the concept of player control. First glances might give the impression of a typical third person shooter, but a few concepts set it apart. It’s a game of cooperative team-building. Players are scored on the collection of resources that allow them to shape the growth of their team. A vital element of success is the creation of structures and barricades that can be placed at the whims of the players. A free-form movement system allows for creative navigation and evasion. The goal is to provide a refined, current-generation shooter that still manages to implement the kinds of choices that bring players back for more.
The Afflicted: Mechanics Overview
The Afflicted – Level Design Theory and Practices
Game-Play Overview: The basic game-play of The Afflicted is designed to create the feeling of large-scale riots and quick decision making. The game-play should present to players enjoyable combat and a variety of other options at all times, while promoting player interaction and teamwork. Players will be provided with consistent choices between evasion, fire-arm combat, and melee with each mechanic fleshed out to present a varied experience to the player.
The primary goal of The Afflicted, in terms of game-play, is to capture control points in the environment, but in order to be able to effectively capture and defend these areas; teams will need to have strong weaponry. Teams can unlock weapons by collecting resources scattered through the environment and depositing these resources into weapon deposit points in the team base.
The Afflicted: Level Design Theories and Practices
Afficted-LevelDesignTheory.docx
THE CAPITOL
Download The Afflicted to play this level.
The Capitol is one of the two levels that were developed by the team at Autonomous Games for The Afflicted. The Capitol differs from Single-Point in that the three phase progression takes place in a linear fashion instead of the radial phase progression that is seen in Single-Point.
The Capitol is set in a nearby market-place that surrounds the capitol building of the planet; where the capitol and marketplace have both been raided. Players must scavenge the environment for control points and for scattered resources in order to survive.
Capitol Level Layout
The Capitol: Game-Play Walk-Through
The Capitol: Level Fly-Through
Photo Gallery
Single-Point
Download The Afflicted to play this level.
Single-Point was the very first level to be developed for The Afflicted and took over one year to develop because the level design theories and practices were in development at the same time that this level was. After the year of development, Single-Point was able to provide the designers and level designers a clear idea of how the levels in The Afflicted need to be designed so that it worked the correct way for three teams.
Single-Point uses the idea of radial three phase expansion as the level progresses over time. This was the first method of three-phase expansion that we were able to develop for The Afflicted, but then The Capitol level implements the idea of a linear phase expansion that worked well for the game.
Single-Point Level Layout
Single-Point: Game-Play Walk-Through
Single-Point: Level Fly-Through
Photo Gallery
GDC Play 2013
The Afflicted, and the team at Autonomous Games, was invited to present the game at GDC 2013 for the GDC Play showcase. This was an exciting opportunity for the team to show the game off to indie and AAA video game industry professionals and get valuable feedback for the game.
Held every year in San Francisco, the Game Developers Conference is a great way to meet other game developers, learn about the industry, and learn valuable development tricks and techniques from the professionals.
My Art Assets
During my time as one of the level designers on The Afflicted, I was also able to create a set of 3D assets for the Capitol level because we were in a crunch period where The Capitol level needed to be fully fleshed out.
The Development Team
Photo Gallery
One thought on “The Afflicted”