JphOutput

FLOP

Jakob Holm — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 10:04:37 +0000

FLOP is a physics based multiplayer death match game. The player can utalize varius traps, meele weapons and guns to kill the other players. The game ends when one player reaches the kill count for the match.

FLOP was a university project for me and four other students. The game was made as part of our university course. We began the development of the game when the game “Humans Fall Flat” was at its peak popularity, which was a big inspiration for the game.

The original vision for the game was to create a game similar to “Humans Fall Flat” and build on it by having more game modes and features. We dedicated much of our efforts towards our physics based character, the networking code, making assets and we even had a level editor.

But the game had too braod a scope for what we wanted to achieve. The game was meant to be “Wacky physics game”, but what is the main goal of the activities you do with the wacky physics. Was the game a platformer? Obstacle course / racing game? Fighting game? Etc. The game was meant to be used for all thease things. Which led us to not focus on anything with serius dedication. With one month and half left we had a physics game with a ton of assets and finished levels, which had no clear gameplay loop.

In the end, we had to scrap together what we had into a playable product for the end of the semester. The best thing we could make with the time we had left, which we thought would be the most fun and use the most of our assets was a deathmatch game.

The deathmatch game works and has some fun momments. But it dosen’t utalize the physics based character to its full potential and we had to simply parts of it to make the game playable. The character controls are also a bit to wonky and stiff for a deathmatch game.

The FLOP game flopped. But it was very good lesson in why having a clear scope and a solid design direction is so critical for a game success.

Below is the trailer for the games Deathmatch game mode. Which the only really finished game mode.

Neat Beat

Jakob Holm — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 21:24:25 +0000

An infinitive one-button rythm mobile game three friends and me made during college. The player needs to tap their phone or press down on it at certain times. A single miss sends the player back to the begining of the game. The game has an awesome synth soundtrack which fit nicely with the game’s neon aesthetic.

I only had a limited role in the project as I busy with other projects. I helped come up with the initial design for the game and assisted with the game’s difficulty manager.

Total War – Secret project

Jakob Holm — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 21:16:18 +0000

For last three years, I have solely been working on the next big historical Total War game, which is still in-development and under NDA.

During this time I have been the main designer in charge of many core systems and designs.

I have for the start been spearheading the develment of the game new core military gameplay loop.
I have been leading the development of the games map and structure.
Main coordinator between the campaign and the battle-system and how they effect each other.
Main designer behind how the character design and how their systems and effects figured into the larger game.

Three Kingdoms: Eight Princes

Jakob Holm — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 21:11:19 +0000

Eight Princes was the first DLC I worked on. Due to a lack of post-release development plan and miscommunication we had with our chinese partners, the game turned out less succesful than what it could have been.

I work on a variety of features. I helped brainstorm and Implimented the faction designs made by senior designers.

Another designer had come up the visuals and initial effects of the games technology tree. But I did some improvements by making each technology have more supstaintible bonuses and increased research time.

Since our development budget was small, we had to look to as many ways as possible to make the game stand out. Because of this, I decided to give all of the eight princes characters a unique skill tree with special combination of skill nodes and abilities.

Due to my experience working on the camera introduction for the game’s Dynasty mode. I did the flyover introductions for all the factions in the game (see an example by clicking the video).

The game can be bought here:
TW: Three Kingdoms – Eight Princes

Three Kingdoms DLC’s and Dynasty Mode

Jakob Holm — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 21:09:09 +0000

Three Kingdoms Dynasty Mode

I did the camera intros for the dynasty mode for Three Kingdoms. I started working during the final week before devlock, so we didn’t have any resources other than what we could script.

The intros were quite simple but effective. Before this, the player would just be taken to a pre-battle deployment that made the game feel more like a debug-version of the game.

The intros were inspired by classic fighting movies where the hero and villian are eyeing each other up before one sides yields out and fighting commences.

Watch the intro sequence here

Three Kingdoms - Mandate Of Heaven

I joined the project breifly to help fix some bugs, assist with the faction mechanic for Liu Chong’s Trophy system and impliment the design for the faction Tao Qian.

Liu Chong’s Trophy system was very similar to the work I had done on “A World Betrayed”. Where the player earns specific titles by performing specific deeds. Liu Chong’s trophies was exactly like this. I assisted with some ideas for the trophies and help impliment the scripts to facilitate it.

The design for Tao Qian’s faction was all about his faction gaining increased powers and cost reductions to buildings as the chaos of the war around him rages. I help setup some of the systems and his political situation for one of the start dates of the game.

The game can be bought here:
Total War: Three Kingdoms – Mandate Of Heaven

Three Kingdoms - Fates Divided

Was pulled in to work on the game for a month. Fixed varius bugs like the achivements not being activated and created the starting relationship being the characters.

The game can be bought here:
Total War: Three Kingdoms – Fates Divided

Hidden Wolf

Jakob Holm — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 20:44:31 +0000

During my time in University, a friend and I created a simple game engine in C++ to make a game old Wolfenstein clone with a twist. All the enemies are invisible until the player activates battery-powered glasses to see them.

The game starts of in prison area. It has fewer enemies spread out over large area with more open spaces. Which should make it easier for the player to spot and eliminate.

To incentifice the player to explore and run into hidden monsters. Side paths exist which pickups that can restore the players health or increase it permanently.

Playing into the theme of the enemies being invisible monsters we purposefully placed some enemies around corners and near health pickups, that would draw the players attention away from their surroundings. Some enemies can be spotted before entering new rooms, while some won’t be activated before the player commits themselves to entering the room.

The player eventually goes into a collapsed tunnel section with constantly twisting passages with holes in the walls. The contorted geometry and shorter distances between player and monster offcause increases the games challange, since the player are pushing further into the monsters domain.

Before heading into the final section, the player gets a health and armor boost. The player then goes through a short undefended section before heading into the final boss area. The intention with the short section was to build up tension for the final area. Because the player have just been fighting in tight cooridores, they will be on constant alert in this final are of the game.

The final boss arena is a simple bullet hell, since the Boss shoots multiple projectiles at a time and has a bunch of underlings with him. The wide open area allows the monster AI to zigzag effectively side to side. So the player still relies a lot on their googles to see the enemies in this open area. Adding to the difficulty, the boss has multiple lives. The player wins the game when the boss is defeated.

If we had to redo a thing, it would be this boss fight. Since the final challange of the game has little to do with the theme and the way the player has been playing all game. It would be better if the boss area was a laberienth, where the boss could jump in and out of cover to shot the player.

Download the game here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qScsaHDgiOPVUAuB5IrjZ6agG3FDB_FF/view?usp=drive_link

BLINK

Jakob Holm — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 16:43:45 +0000

The game Blink centres around a man that has lost his ability to see other people. Because he has isolated himself from the world for too long, the player must help the man find the remnants of his co-workers, friends and family to escape his isolation.

I implemented the visual aesthetics, working on shaders and made the levels of the game. The art style is black and white with a strong outline shader, which fitted well with the story of man who has become so detached that he only sees the basic outline of the world. The levels were centered eliminating noise and finding items associated with people in his life.

Read a review of the game here:
https://www.alphabetagamer.com/blink-game-jam-build/

Go to here to play the game: https://murraysomerwolff.itch.io/blink

Three Kingdoms: Furious Wild

Japh — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 18:16:30 +0000

The first big map and culture expansion for Three Kingdoms. I made faction with a unique military loop, refined the new factions technology tree, created events and setup the victory conditions.

Lady Zhurong

Lady Zhurong is the 2nd most important faction of the DLC (but arguably the most fun).

Besides having tigers and units with flame-maces at her command. She has the “Wild Fire” faction feature.

Every 7-8 turn on the campaign her faction gains the ability to activate “Wild Fire”. It grants all her armies an set of powerful bonuses and abilities for the next 5 turns. However while Wild Fire is active, she is unable to replenish her forces. When wild fire is deactivated, she losses her ability to conduct an offensive campaign. She receives a massive debuff to her armies but a buff to replenishment.

The player is allways in control of when to start Wild Fire. Which is useful since Wild Fire has different bonuses depending on the time of year it’s activated. But to avoid the issue of players not using their most powerful tool and constantly saving it. There is a small debuff that gets stronger over time if the player dosen’t use the feature. The player can allways deactivate Wild Fire ahead of time. This reducecs the military penalty time that follows.

Technology Tree

I worked on the special Nanman Tech tree unique for the Nanman factions. I modified some of the existing conditions to unlock some of the technologies, fixed the bugs with unlocking them, and modified the rewards for unlocking the research nodes.

The Nanman tech tree works differently in two main ways.

1) The player must perform certain deeds to unlock the ability to research certain technologies. Thease deeds involve constructing certain buildings, winning battles or confucting specific diplomacy deals with Nanman and Han Chinese factions.

2) There are divergent technologies where the player can only pick one of two options. Thease options are flavored around staying true to Nanman traditions or adapting Han Chinese methods. Based on how true the player has kept themselves to one path of thease choices, they gain access to a spatial technology at the of end of technology.

Camera Intros, Diplomacy, Events, Victory Conditions

There a lot of big and small components that make the new Nanman factions stand out. Which I helped bring to life.

Compared to the Han-Chinese factions, the Nanman start off with fewer diplomacy options. They have to research more treaties via their technology tree. To highlight that they fundementally aren’t on the best footing with the main Han-Chinese factions, interacting with them on a complex level is locked behind optional end-game technology. The player can choose to get those technologies or get permenant bonus to bring to the Han-Chinese factions. I setuped the diplomacy restrictions and their unlock conditions.

The Nanman factions have a different win condition to the game. Their win condition is essentially capture teritory and then survive the onslaught. As the Nanman conquer more factions they gain diplomacy debuff against all non-nanman factions, which by the end makes them very hostile to the player. They must forfill the following objectives:

Occupy all 21 Nanman-type lands.
Conquer and hold 50 settlements in total.
When that’s done, you’ll have to hold out for 20 turns keeping all the teritory.

To create more flavour for the Nanman, we came up with a new set of genneric set of events for them including some specific events and dilemma unique to their factions. I was in charge of a lot of thease.

I was also in charge of all the flyover intros for the new factions. Which is work I have done for two other DLC’s aswell.

The game can be bought here:
Total War: Three Kingdoms – Furious Wild

Three Kingdoms: A World Betrayed

Jakob Holm — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 21:40:09 +0000

Sun Ce Faction design

Sun Ce was the leaders for the new factions in A World Betrayed.

Sun Ce’s story can be summed as a mixture of Rob Stark from Game Of Thrones and Alexander the Great in China. His father was mureded in an ambush and he used his fathers generals to carve out one of the Three Kingdoms that the period is known for. Sun Ce was capable and extremely reckless. However this recklessness got him killed and similar to Alexander, he was very young.

Sun Ce has three major components we wanted to bring across.

Reckless Aggresive: Sun Ce was aggresive, so we wanted to reward and encourge the player to play like this.
Character-centric: Sun Ce assembled a legendary court of characters. He was gifted at turning and making people following him.
Zero to hero: Sun Ce started with nothing. But he carved out a whole kingdom by the end of his life.

I first and formost wanted to push the player to play like Sun Ce. To do this, I gave his faction a ticking clock feature. Sun Ce’s faction has a Resource called “Reckless Luck”. The higher the resource is, the faster Sun Ce’s armies are. However this resource will allways tick down over time. If it ever runs out, then Sun Ce dies. The player can delay the decay and reduce the resource drain by completing recreating Sun Ce’s kingdom.

To create his kingdom the player must follow in Sun Ce’s footsteps. This means conquering certain regions in southeren China, recruiting and leveling up characters and enacting his revenge.

To further support Sun Ce’s faction and tie it closer to the character-centric / Zero-To-Hero aspect. I modified how his faction ministerial position works. In the game, any character more or less allways provided the same effect for the faction. For Sun Ce, the higher leveled the character was the stronger effect they provided.

Sun Ce Level / Mission Design

Sun Ce starts the game with a single army and 6 units and no teritory under his control. So the player is starting the game off scramping to conquer teritory and march southward. To help, Sun Ce starts off with a ton of Reckless Luck. But this will quickly drain away.

The player has a couple of varying paths, but if they want to keep Sun Ce alive are heavily encourged to capture teritory in Southeren China. After completing the first couple of objectives, the player have slowed or stopped the ticking clock and acquired an economic base. By completing the objectives, the player also earns unique characters to their court which will aid Sun Ce’s faction.

This gives them time and ability for the player to persue their own agenda. They can start the sandbox-experience now or face the climax of the story: Seeking revenge for the death of Sun Ce’s fathers. Which is done by killing and destroying the faction the murders faction. After this is complete, the player regains any lost Reckless luck and Sun Ce’s faction becomes unstopable.

In retrospec I would have liked to change the structure of the Mission Design. While the current structure grants the player more freedom after the initial part is complete, more could have been done to setup killing Sun Ce’s father murderer as the big conclusion to the game. In addition it’s also to easy to stop the ticking clock before it becomes a threat to the player. I would have liked to change the structure so the player first fully stops the ticking clock when they have enacted Sun Ce’s revenge, thereby allowing the ticking clock mechanic to be a persistant presure element throughout the Sun Ce’s campaign. This in turn would hopefully also have made completing Sun Ce’s revenge be greater aswell as the reward for it would be a big releive to the player.

Titles

One of the core pillars of Three Kingdoms was the characters. However theree was a recurring dissatisfaction problem. Most characters would over time become dissatisfied due to their ambition. The best way to solve this is to give them a seat in your goverment. But there is a very small set of seats available. In most cases the only thing the player could do was to grant them a higher ranking title, but this would only grant the character a temporary boost to satisfaction. The underlying problem wasn’t solved. In addition this allways carried a hefty price to do and significantly increased the characters upkeep. So it felt like a bad thing the player needed to do. In addition the titles were allways from a fixed hierarchical set. So you end up with 6 characters all being named “Master of War” or “Second-in-command”. While loyal characters would remain at “Clerk” level, cause there was no incentive to grant them a title.

I looked to the history of the period to fix this. A lot of Characters during the period and in the story would be rewarded with a very varied and diverse set of titles from their deeds or personalties. Like: “General Who Gives Tranquility To The North”, “Colonel that gives praise to the army”, “Iron General”, “Commander of the flying cavalry”, etc. Based on this i came up with a big set of titles, that could be unlocked by performing various deeds during the campaign. All of them would grant effects to whomever had the title. Some titles would be weaker and easier to earn, while the stronger and more expensive would be hearder to earn.

Titles didn’t cost anything to reward and they all had an upkeep cost. The more powerfull the title, the higher the upkeep. In addition I gave a lot of the powerfull titles an additional effect which reduced their ambition-dissatisfaction. Which ended up solving the dissatisfaction problem.

Bandit Rework

When the game was launched all the bandit factions in the game essentially played just all the other factions. So we completly overhauled all aspects of the factions. Thease are some of the elements I worked on.

Military Gameplay loop (Loot & Spoils): I designed the new mililtary core gameplay loop for the Bandit factions. Which was one of the most core change of the bandit rework. Since it changed the incentive structure for how the player should use their armies. Bandits armies aren’t to be marching armies that conquer all they see like normal armies. The player is meant to use their armies to raid and pillage their neirboring factions. This increases the amount of spoils the army carries around. When the army can’t carry more or replenishment is low. The army returns home, shares the spoils, which grants the faction signifantly higher income and rapidly replenishes the army. The army now empty of spoils to carry and a fully restored army can now go out to continue pillaging.

Research Tree (Bandit Network): The Bandit factions got a new Technology tree, which works a bit differently than the normal tech tree. In the game the player normally gets a new technology every 5 turns. But the bandit factions get new technology by learning from other criminal gangs around China. The bandit faction learns thease technologies faster, if they earn the teritory. I designed and balanced all the effects that the faction earn from each node from the Bandit Network.

Mercenary Contracts: Bandits got access to a special diplomacy action. They can become Mercenaries for another factions. When accepted (and usally for good payment) the bandit faction becomes an unoffical ally of their contract owner for ~20 turns and are finansially rewarded for attacking the target, that they’re employed to attack. I created the design for the feature and implimented it.

I had the pleasure of participating in the announcement stream for the game! See it below.

The game can be bought here:
TW: Three Kingdoms – A World Betrayed