Game Overview

KamiKaze is a controller-only multiplayer shooter where it's every player for themselves—no teams, just pure free-for-all action! The main objective of the game is that all the players have to kill each other over and over again within a given period of time. Players respawn at base locations every time they die throughout the round. Each time a player dies, a health pack pops up for the other players to regain HP. And every minute, players’ health would exchange with each other.

Itch.io link: https://vamsi-varra.itch.io/kamikaze

Development

My work on this game consisted of the following:

• Researching map designs from games like Valorant, Call of Duty, and Counter-Strike.

• Concepting and drawing ideas for the City/Casino map.

• Building out the concepts in UE5's level editor.

• Hunt down free assets and textures in online shops and archives.

• Collaborating with the art team on the creation of our own assets for the maps.

The Idea: City/Casino

The first map I conceptualized for KamiKaze was City. It takes place in New York City and has a mix of 40s-60s aesthetics imbued into it. Moreover, it is meant to have a bit of a greyscale look to its environment, with some big splashes of color from the neon lights and the players to provide distinct contrast. The overall map form follows that of a distorted L-shape. I originally wanted something similar to CoD MWII’s Santa Seña map. What I mean here is the huge abundance of vehicles that the map had for cover. However, without the straight line shape it also had (that kind of ruined that map for many). Early in development, though, I was told by the lead that he wanted a centerpiece for City, and thus the Casino was born. The Casino is the huge building added in the middle of the map layout on the overhead pictures. The Casino could be its own map, frankly. Outside of it, there is the apartments section to the top and the waterside section at the bottom. Both serve as the sides where players will be spawning. Well, that’s the surface-level analysis of the map. To go a bit deeper, the Casino is the place to analyze. There is a reason this section is called “City/Casino”, by the way. This is because the story, flow, and visuals of City all revolve around this place. Story-wise, City presents a bit of a war-torn look to its streets. Police got a tip that this Casino was housing illegal contraband, and thus they raided it. In the process, madness ensues, and many of the criminals in the Casino make a run for it. This is why you can see some cars and crashed around the area and so many police. Flow-wise, I made sure City tries to push all its players towards the Casino. The Casino holds multiple power positions and a lot of cover. Essentially, it’s a fortress, and whoever controls the fortress the most is most likely to win. However, it does have a lot of entrances (which facilitate pushes), and the backrooms work as a safe space where players can hide and wait for sneaky kills, so it’s got its own fair share of holes in its armor. To exploit these weaknesses, there are the streets and the back alley. The streets serve as the place to mount a frontal assault. They got a lot of vehicular and city cover and have huge entry points through the doors and windows. The back alley serves as the stealth option of entry. It features both an entry directly to the first-floor backrooms and an entry directly to the second-floor VIP area. So yeah, while the Casino holds a lot of kill potential for the players who reside in it, it also features many counters to its heavy defense. This way, the Casino is a constantly shifting entity within the map and provides an objective to capture and defend, even in Deathmatch modes. Finally, there’s the visuals, and the highlight here are the bright neon signs around the Casino. This was done to further emphasize the centerpiece nature of the Casino area. With City, you have a city in greyscale that deeply contrasts with the players’ bright colors, and then here in the middle is a place that separates itself from that greyscale by incorporating the players’ same aesthetic. So, on top of emphasizing that centerpiece aspect of it, it also tells the players they should be there by incorporating the very same aesthetic aspects the players possess.

Now that is a lot of talk for the Casino itself, but that’s because the City-level is essentially the cream for the cake that is the Casino. The plan is to have the Casino be its own level for the game if you want a tighter and faster-paced experience. This is why this section is called “City/Casino”, because they really are two experiences in one.

The Lesson

I think my biggest lesson making the City level was not to unfocus when developing an idea you see potential in. During the early development of City, I was asked by the project lead to start development on another map called Snow. That is a map I will eventually put here, but for now, it’s far from done. I spent a good month-ish concepting and building it. However, I never felt as good working on that map as I did with City. And that is because of the simple fact that I saw more potential in the City map design I did than I did in Snow. Eventually, when enough work was done on Snow and I could return to working on City, I felt all the momentum of ideas I had built up working on it was suddenly gone. This easily delayed a week’s worth of progress for an extra week or 2. I eventually got that momentum back, but now this will be a problem I will face with the Snow level too. This project showed me how important it is to focus on ideas you are invested in and not to break that focus, because you may lose some time at best and some quality at worst. If I could go back in time, I would try to hold my ground and, if I could, simply keep up work on the City level till I felt it was perfect.