Space Pirates

In Spring 2018 I took the role of 3D artist and game designer on my first project at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) Space Pirates. We pitched the project idea to ETC faculty with the goal of exploring board games designed for AR and were selected to be a full three month project. This experience was a ton of fun for me and I discovered that AR is a really interesting space for strategy games. So much so that it spun off into my current side project Galactic Commander, which is exploring a similar space but with a single player story. This page will document the design work I did on Space Pirates including game balance and use of space and level design.

In the video below I narrate a live demonstration of the game at our final presentation for the semester.

Game Systems and Balance

Ships in “Space Pirates” have four different actions they can use during gameplay: “Harvest”, “Trade”, “Defend”, and “Attack” as well as movement. These four actions had different parameters that each needed to be balanced against each other. Since a core part of our game was 3 dimensional movement of spaceships, I wanted the ships to vary in which of their quadrants (Fore, Aft, Port, Starboard, Dorsal, and Ventral) they could use each action and how good they were at it. Due to time constraints only Attack and Defend vary in quality and positioning, Harvest only changes in positioning, and Trade is static for each ship.

The Defend action section above defines how effective the Defend action on a ship is at deflecting damage from attacks. Players can select the Defend action to turn on their ship’s shields, which stay on until depleted. They can also reset their shield values by turning them on again. On the balance sheet the input shield value represents the efficiency of the shields in that quadrant at reducing damage and the output value is the contribution to the total shield pool. The Battleship on the left above has the most effective shields on the port and starboard, least efficient on the Aft, and no shielding on the Dorsal or Ventral. The total shield pool that will be reduced by the attacks is 27 (the sum of the output values).

The Attack action section above defines how effective the Attack action on a ship is at dealing damage to other ships. Players can select the Attack action to enter a first person POV and aim their cannons at another ship. They can freely move their reticle anywhere around the ship, but will only be able to fire if aiming through the active quadrants. For example the battleship above will only be able to shoot through its Fore, Aft, Port, and Starboard. Players know which quadrants they can shoot through because we overlay targeting grids on the active quadrants in both AR (togglable) and 1st person. The damage dealt to opposing ships upon a successful hit is the Damage output value, which first reduces the opposing shields, then the hp if no shield blocks the path.

Spacial Layout and Level Design

Space Pirates had the interesting challenge of combining board games with AR. We started off the semester assuming our game would take place on a tabletop, with floating ships hovering above it. However, I soon realized that the table was just getting in the way of the game, and by removing the table players could more easily maneuver their ships, and play across a larger area. So I decided to plan for a room scale experience people could play in their living rooms. But what’s the ideal play space? I tested several variations of the space until settling on an 8 foot diameter cylinder, with the center of the plane at 4 feet. This size was large enough to give players room from bumping into each other, but not so large that they didn’t feel connected in the game.

The grids on the ground and center of planetary bodies is used as a reference for players. By matching parts of the carpet and floor to the ground grid, they can easily follow it up to the main grid and make an easy mental model of the space. The asteroids are arranged in two slanted figure eights that intersect around a central planet, and each loop goes to a space station. The space stations are linked around the outside by a ring of asteroids. This arrangement gives players paths to follow and easy short term goals, while funneling play into specific locations to encourage interaction.