Information
Trouble in Terrorist Town
The game is about a group of “terrorists” who have traitors among them, out to kill everyone who’s not a traitor.
Layout
As I first started on this project, I had planned to incorporate both outside and indoors areas. I wanted to create a flawless seam, where players could perform quick kills and still hide in plain sight.
To achieve this I worked a lot with uneven surfaces, foliage and larger props that obstruct vision. This makes it hard to tell what just happened and who the traitor may be.
The map is shaped as a rectangle and uses lights to create safe space for players. The middle part is less well lit and feels more dangerous. But it is also the fastest way to travel across the world. Sort of like a double edged sword.
Playtests
As I iterated and playtested on the level I noticed how people grouped up towards the left side of the map. Just about where the X is marked on the picture. This made it hard for traitors to kill, as people remained grouped.
To work around this I implemented more indoor connections to the mentioned area. Also added windows and wallbangable walls, to make the area less safe.
The level still felt slower paced compared to my previous entry, so I started working with the idea of having a specific valuable gameplay element somewhere. This became the Traitor Tester. It is located at the very top of the level and can be used to check what role a player has been given.
This instantly changed the levels gameplay loop. All players suddenly started running away from that area from the very start. This to not risk being caught as a traitor early in the round by the Tester. The level became way more dynamic and all of the playable space became used more frequently.
Optimization
The level uses a combination of optimization methods. These are all done to maintain a high framerate, especially on full servers. The typical TTT server can usually host up to 30 players at a time. So every small optimization we can do improves the experience significantly.
The methods include, prop fading, areaportals, sectioned level design and hint/skip brushes(visleaves).