Honours Project
ROLE
Programmer
DESCRIPTION
For my honours project I developed a competitive multiplayer third-person shooter game where each level is procedurally generated. My main focus for this project was to investigate if levels can be procedurally generated in such a way where a competitive balance can be achieved.
Project description
The aim of this project was to develop a procedural map generation system to analyze how effectively it would impact the user's experience in a competitive multiplayer game. A procedural map generation system was created which allows developers to quickly create levels intended for competitive shooter games. This system ensures that balanced levels are created. To create balanced levels a cellular automata algorithm is used to create and evolve levels, this algorithm is highly customisable and allows for interesting levels to be generated.
This project makes use of the steam online subsystem provided by Unreal Engine, this allows for users across the world to search and join a match within this application. Four players are allowed to join a match where players select their team and play against each other in a two versus two game.
The gamemode created for this application was a competitive bomb defusal gamemode similar to Counter Strike: Global Offensive. The first team to win six rounds wins the game. There are two levels within the game which have been created using procedural generation.
User testing showed that the procedurally generated levels are in fact competitively balanced and are suitable for competitive shooter games.
