Hey everyone, Ric (Fat Digester) here!
I’m the Art Director here at Freejam and this is my Map Making Dev Jam. Yeah I make things sparkle, explode and shine, but I am also heavily involved in map design too; here’s my take on making a Robocraft Map.

Artists can’t design or Designers can’t make art?
Outdated stereotypes! This is a defunct view of level design in the games industry; especially on indie projects like Robocraft where the role of level art and level design is now blurred and rightly so. With over 17 years of making games I have grown to understand both roles intimately; working alongside expert designer Sergii and super-talented artist Dave, we make a strong combination that leads to a unique approach to map creation.

Why are some Robocraft maps Meh... ?
OK so lets firstly appreciate that most of the maps (apart from Earth TDM and Spitzer Damn) were all created in about 2-3 weeks from start to finish including final art; this is a ridiculously short period of time but necessary when the team is only 5-ish people strong. If we spent 2 months on level design at that stage, we would not have had a full gaming experience. When you make an indie game on a tiny budget you have to cover large ground fast and then gradually increase the level of quality once you actually have a game to play.



So how do we make better maps?
Now we have allocated 4 weeks to design and another 4 weeks to artwork, we can plan and structure our pipeline more efficiently; we can incorporate bespoke luxuries not previously allowed with smaller time-frames and we also have a lot more time to playtest and evolve a map.


The Four Key Stages of Map Design

Stage 01 - Set the stage, create a Narrative "Vanguard’s End"
I like having a brainstorm before any plan is written down to establish a thematic setting; key focal points and bespoke architecture are all important to the immersion of a level. Designer Sergii and I had toyed with the idea of creating a large integrated structure into a map for months and frequently discussed factories and facilities in Maps with the community. So the vision for the Vanguard Crash site began to emerge and we started sketching out some early concepts of the ship to help us evolve the map.



The new map is centered around a spaceship crash site, as you teleport down to the planet for the first time you will find yourself surrounded by debris from the crashed vessel: huge girders, control panels and parts of the ship's fuselage litter your spawn point. Glance to your right and you will see the nose of the ship rising out of the ground like a whale breaking the water to breath, glance to your left and you will see the mangled carcass of the aft section of the ship, huge ailerons pierce the sky and three huge thrusters dominate the view, the thrusters are extensively damaged and allow you access to the internal space within the ship, this is a very cool feeling as you drive through the thruster afterburner to access the middle Protonium tower. - Thematic excerpt from my Freejam AMA on Reddit.

We wanted to cater for as many play styles as possible in this map so having a fully enclosed space wasn't an option for flyers; the idea of partially exploding the ship and allowing combat to move in, around and through its carcass seems like a fantastic concept. The smoldering wreckage would provide cover for ground units while the huge perforations in the ship's super-structure are perfect for flyers to swoop through. The beautiful thing about having a large structure in the game is that players instantly know their bearing and head straight for locations without having to navigate there.



Stage 02 - Paper Design (layout)
It's all about the maths at this stage; principally the new maps will be symmetrical to ensure a balanced experience for both teams. Symmetry is by no means a hard and fast rule for arena based map design but it does make things easier to balance.

Initially there is always a choice of three primary directions from your base spawn position; we see direct routes to the two closest towers (red and blue lines) and a fast route to the enemy base (green line), the latter is essential for the end game as players must quickly traverse the entire map as quickly as possible.



The purple (Bermuda) triangle is where most of the action happens in the early game at least; players are generally moving around the map directly between towers trying to capture or defend them. Direct paths between towers are essential to allow players to react to a new situation with speed. The principle is to allow the blue base fast access to T1, medium access to the more contested tower at T2 and the longer route to capture the Furthest T3 tower. it ensures that your team must be better than the enemy to capture that more difficult 3rd tower.

Stage 03 - Grey Box
The initial realization of your design in 3D is always an exciting highlight for me; it is brilliant to see your ideas realized and hopefully a lot of the strategy we planned is carried right into the map.



Initially, we create simple representative untextured geometry in Maya (3D software) and export it into the game for the first playtest, we play the map and iterate it several times a day for about 3 whole weeks before we make any bespoke artwork for it. This type of cyclic testing is paramount in making a successful map.

In the early stages we will play just 2-a-side and roleplay different strategies using a variety of play styles: I will become a flying Rail sniper and I would systematically explore all higher vantage points in the map trying to shoot Sergii and stay out of range/sight. Sergii will play ground (he’s crap in the air) and see how easy it is to find and take me down.



We will change play style and go through this process many many times over, each time we find a biased weakness in the map design we make alterations to the geometry to even out the balance. After each revision everyone involved in the playtest comes together and discusses their experiences. This is the stage key to honing the map and evolving it into a great experience for all player types.

Stage 04 - Art
Remember we have had an eye on the thematic setting from day one of this map development, so this stage is more about realizing that visual and also enhancing gameplay objectives. The Vanguard is obviously the starting point for this process and we created an concept of this ship early in the map development. The concept of the Vanguard helped us create a solid vision for the level and the superstructure of the ship is influenced by the requirements of the map design as much as the visuals. We modeled the entire Vanguard in 3D first, then fragmented it up to fit the design greybox, this process took a few weeks to finish but important not to break the design.



It's worth noting however that replacing greybox meshes with final art is dangerous; as soon as you highlight a route with smoke or maybe flickering strip-lights, you can easy emphasis key locations or break the flow of the map if you place them badly. As a result of this process, we think the Vanguard’s End map is a more immersive experience than any other Robocraft map. I think it's a great union between art and design; which is a testament to our new level design process.

I could talk all day about this process and I am happy to answer any more in-depth questions you might have; I’ll be hanging out on the Robocraft forums here for the next few days.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few more images from the new map.

- Ric