OPPONENTS IN CRIME
GAME OVERVIEW
Opponents in Crime is an online party brawler, where up to 4 players compete in an art heist to see who steals the most valuable loot.
Genre: Online Party-Brawler
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Team: 18 members
Platform: PC
Duration: 9 Weeks
Role: Gameplay & Level Designer
SUMMARY
My Contributions
Levels
- Designed two multiplayer levels: a 1v1 map and a larger 2v2 map
- Developed through an iterative process from initial sketches to final layout.
Gameplay
- Built test rooms to introduce and evaluate core mechanics.
- iterated and balanced gameplay based on player feedback
Art and Visual Scripting
- Implemented animation blueprints for all characters and connected animations to player input states.
- Created traps using a Parent Class and assigned their gameplay effects.
CHALLENGES & TAKEAWAYS
First Multiplayer and Unreal Experience
Developing a multiplayer game was far more complex than single-player work—every system had to run on both client and server, essentially doubling the workload. My first team project with Unreal Engine taught me to focus on only the necessary tools, despite the engine’s vast features. Early in development I experimented with many tools, which help me understand more about the engine at the cost of having a focused approach.
Proactive Teamwork
Our team’s proactive collaboration and creative problem-solving boosted morale and efficiency, showing me firsthand the impact of strong communication and teamwork, but also having similar dynamics can do wonders for team efficiency.
Restricted Level Design
Designing levels from a fixed perspective introduced new challenges with player depth perception, requiring careful adaptation to avoid visual illusions.
LEVEL DESIGN
Pre-greyboxing Testing
- Experimented with camera angles to find the best perspective
- Collaborated with a programmer to find solutions for the visibility issues caused by walls. As a team, we decided to implement a culling effect for walls.
- Set up a small testing area to evaluate solutions.
New Challenges
- First Multiplayer co-op project.
- Making levels accessible to multiple player types, playstyles, and skill levels.
- Creating scenarios to motivate players to interact with one another, where the goal is not just to get the highest, most efficient score, but to enjoy the game in the process.
Iterative Solutions
- Reduced the size of the map of the empty space that was not being utilized.
- Moved art and traps closer to the center, increasing interaction between players.
- Created more paths that lead to recognizable landmarks, attracting players naturally to the action.
- Placed unique highly valuable loot closer to the center.
1v1 Level - Improvements
- Utilized directional geometry to suggest paths to the player that lead to active areas.
- Designed death spaces as secondary locations to create a breathing room or easy loot, producing new opportunities for player encounters.
- Made traps more prominent in the level to incentivise activity, making winning less important.
- Placed traps and art spawn locations in more readable areas or in places to motivate the player to certain paths.
Green Ring = Traps Spawn Location ||| Yellow ring = Art Spawn Location
red square = most active location
1v1 Level - Final Result
- Traps are the first objects the players encounter, solidifying their importance.
- Increased the number of traps around the center of the level to motivate them to stay engaged in that area.
- Important landmarks were established even more, such as a security guard who patrols the center and a locked safe containing unique, high-value loot.
- "Death spaces" became complementary rather than obsolete, used strategically to hide loot, set traps, or ambush distracted players.
Green Ring = Traps Spawn Location ||| Yellow ring = Art Spawn Location
red ovals = most active location
2v2 and FFA Level
Level Goal
- Four-player-map designed for multiple simultaneous playstyles
- Focus on asymmetrical navigation and different risk/reward paths
Layout Strategy
The map uses uneven path distribution to influence player movement. The left side has more restricted access to the center; it has more loot, while the right side has more paths but fewer hiding places.
Player Interaction
Traps near each southern spawn allow early ambush opportunities, while a hidden path connecting spawn points creates an additional flanking route.
Green Ring = Traps Location | Yellow ring = Art Location
white & blue lines = player's paths
brown lines = outer flanking paths
ART & VISUAL SCRIPTING
Animation Blueprints
I created animation blueprints for all characters and assigned them their blend spaces for the animation transition, from idle to sprinting. I use their velocity magnitude to calculate their speed and blend between animations using that parameter. Later, to stream the development process, I moved all the logic into the parent animation blueprint class and created child classes from it. When a new animation was uploaded to the project, it was as simple as adding it to the characters' locomotion.
Traps and art creation
During the design process, we noticed that if players don't have a trap nearby to utilize, or they are at a disadvantage and need to defend themselves, they would feel powerless, as they could only shove their opponent, and for that, they need to be in close range. We understood it would be difficult to overcome this, and we didn't want to make a game that made players feel powerless. If a player "fails," it should be because of their own mistakes or skill, not because the game did not provide enough tools.
A way to solve that was to make art also work as a "trap". Players can throw their art that they are holding to attack and ragdoll their opponents, making it possible to catch up to them or to steal the art they were holding before getting hit.
After the initial design was complete, programmers created the parent classes, gave us tools to create new traps or lootable art, and later we balanced them accordingly.
I created some traps, modified their effects, and added SFX that play when players interact with them.
CONTACT
FIND ME AT: