Bolt N Punch
A game about punching robots
University Capstone Project
Bolt N Punch is a game currently in development by the third year students at UQAT (Bachelor’s in Video Game Art & Design). In this immersive and challenging first person brawler game, we play as an employee of a neofuturistic food factory, using its powerful mecanical gauntlets to destroy a swarm of rioting robots that invaded our workplace.
As part of our capstone project, students had two months to develop game prototypes, going from the initial brainstorm, to a pitch, a high level concept, and finally delivering a playable technical showcase.
At each stage of production, half of the projects were eliminated, and the students from the canceled projects were reassigned to one of the remaining games, whose teams doubled in size.
Having made it past the technical showcase, Bolt N Punch was selected to be made into a complete game in three months and published on Steam.
The team working on Bolt N Punch grew to thirty students. The large size of the team creates a work environment similar to a game studio, where each member is assigned specific roles and leads and project managers ensure that production and communication goes smoothly between each artist, designer and programmer.
My role as a Level Designer
I joined Bolt and Punch after the Technical Showcase phase. As one of the two level designers on the project, my main task is to create blockouts to support the game’s story and present immersive and challenging gameplay experiences to players.
Working closely with the narrative designer and the gameplay programmers, I make sure that each level is adapted to the mechanics available to the players and presents unique interactions and objectives following the main questline.
Close cooperation is also required with the environment artists, sharing ideas on the final look of each room, ajusting some areas to accomodate special hero props, and facilitate environmental storytelling and breadcrumbing thoughout the whole map.
Here are some of the locations I worked on:
Greenhouse
The Greenhouse is the first large arena in the game, where the player will discover the Chunk-Bot, a powerful mini-boss, and learn that this workplace can be pretty dangerous.
2nd Floor
Mixer Room
The Mixer Room unveils an unsettling truth about the produced goods of the factory: The food is supplemented with grinded metal particles from old metal robots!
Piston Puzzle
To reach the next level, players will need to climb against fast conveyer belts and carefully time their climb to avoid getting pushed back down by the brutal pistons.
Haunted Halls
After a rough fight with a pack of robots, we explore an abandoned wing filled with mysterious pipes.
Secret Archives
A small platforming challenge with reward the player with an audio log recorded by an old employee slowly going crazy.
Boss Arena
The Boss Arena is the final room of the game, and hosts the fight with the antagonist of the Story. In its first iteration, the arena boasted conveyer belts pulling the player towards the boss, and lower platforms providing safety and cover. However, the layout wasn’t flowing well and the players avoided a direct confrontation.
The second layout was more effective at encouraging the player to stand close to the boss, but the holes in the platforms and the roller swiping from the side created too much of a mental overload, asking the players to constantly shift their vision. The idea of having enemies spawn on the edges of the arena, providing a way for the player to take a break from the boss patterns and reintroduce the combat loop used in the rest of the game was a nice addition.
The arena evolved into its final layout, mixing the best features from previous versions with a more intuitive playing field.
The main stage is where we challenge the boss, who always launches its attacks from the front of the platform towards the player, making it more predictable and easier to defend against.
The side platforms are completely isolated, keeping their robot squads from swarming the player from behind. The separation of the platforms also ensured that the boss can hit any point on the main stage, preventing players from damaging the boss while staying right outside of its attack range.
