Grimlock was an extremely fun character to design for. He’s huge, uses a sword and shield, and can transform into a dinosaur! What more could a level designer ask for? For this level, I was involved from the earliest prototypes: working with animators, AI programmers, AI designers, audio designers, and artists to flesh out all of Grimlock’s mechanics as well as the AI behaviors of all the custom-made Insecticon enemies Grimlock would encounter. Designing a bespoke melee experience embedded in a 3rd person shooter was a thrilling challenge.
Because Grimlock’s level would focus on melee combat, we had to work very hard to resist the urge to give him a gun. Still, from our earliest prototypes we learned that Grimlock really needed some kind of ranged attack to mix up the constant hack and slash gameplay loop. The solution we arrived at takes advantage of the fact that Grimlock is huge relative to other characters in this universe: we gave Grimlock the ability to pick up enemy AI and throw them around.
The above scripting sequence is an example of a setup where we continually spawn explosives in the world that Grimlock can pick up and throw.
Most of the Grimlock experience is focused on wading through swarms of smaller enemies, destroying everything in sight with the Energon Sword. To break up the pacing, we also created a larger, strong mini-boss style enemy that Grimlock can’t simply charge at straight on.
The above script example shows how we spawn one of these Insecticon Bruisers. The sequence includes custom spawn animations, breaking a custom destructible environment object to hide the spawn, and playing custom rumble and camera shake on the player.
Throughout the level, we carefully instruct the player on each of Grimlock’s core combat mechanics: using his sword and shield, picking up and throwing both objects and enemies. Mid-way through development, we realized these same tools could be re-purposed as a toolkit for solving some rudimentary puzzles. In this clip, Grimlock encounters a malfunctioning door. To break the door’s power supply and continue on, the player must throw an explosive through the partially open door. The door is constantly opening and closing, so the player’s timing must be fairly precise.
Scripting sample from the door puzzle above.
Late in the level, Grimlock is tasked with freeing his imprisoned Dinobot compatriot Snarl from the clutches of Sharpshot. The gameplay featured in this sequence is a prolonged arena fight against progressive waves of enemies. One design challenge for this sequence was keeping the player aware of the narrative implications while not allowing them to stay engrossed in a moderately difficult combat scenario. As the fight progresses, we see Snarl tortured by Sharpshot with increasing frequency. It took a lot of special work from art, fx, animation, cinematics, audio, and VO to keep the player engaged with the story in this sequence.
Logic for controlling Slug as the fight progresses.