Age of Wonders: Planetfall
Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a 4X game made by Triumph Studios under Paradox Interactive. I worked on it as an intern for my graduation.
Age of Wonders Planetfall tells your story as you explore the universe and conquer planets after a massive blackout of an old space civilization.
Premise
“Captain… ready for Planetfall”
I worked on Planetfall as part of my internship, to learn more about Game Design through first hand experience.
The internship lasted for 6 months and taught me a lot about working professionally in the Game Industry as well as how to be a better Designer.
During this time, I worked in Triumph Studios’ own Creation Engine.
One of the first tasks I received was to familiarize myself with the game and the workings of the engine.
Challenges that appeared were initially simply trying to create cases where the game could be exploited. Examples of this are being able to abuse the save system to skip the enemy turns or using a talent for a Hero Character in an unintended way to have infinite Action Points.
Once these bugs were squashed out, I focused more on direct gameplay. I was taught how to work with the engine and consulted my counselor how to best proceed when balancing.
An example were Flying units, who initially could not attack ground units. This made them very unpleasant to have in battle, as they were just free moving targets for the enemy to shoot down from the ground. The solution was to allow them to fire on ground units, but deal bonus damage to other Flying units instead.
Other balancing factors were to allow the Ki’rko faction’s melee units to perform a ranged attack so they could engage earlier in fights and be more fun to employ in battle.
Balancing and QA
A typical battle scene with a variety of units and objects to use for cover or deal explosive damage.
Water Combat
A base near water, allowing the player to start a navy.
Something I was entrusted later in the project were the naval units of the game. Each faction needed a unique set of units specifically for water combat.
I took it upon myself to create a prototype using placeholder units, and suggest different weather effects like whirlpools or mist to alter the battlefield to compensate for the lack of cover objects.
In the end, the prototype was approved, and the design documents for the naval units that I wrote were implemented after some tweaks made by my supervisor.
Faction Design
A hero character facing off against a Ki’rko unit.
During my internship I assisted with coming up with new units and Tech Trees for some of the factions that were being implemented at the time.
When coming up with units, I like to rely on the “rule of cool” and draw inspiration from diving deep into real life examples.
I also offered feedback on some NPC factions, such as the Growth faction having units who could not fight back against flying units, and easily farmed for Experience points.
