Game Systems
Pitched, designed and balanced all of Assassin's Creed Mirage's Tools, including the Throwing Knife, Smoke Bomb, Trap, Blowdart, Noisemaker and the Torch, all their various upgrades, and how AI react to each of them.
My intention was to seek inspiration in the more Stealth-oriented original games, but give them the modern twist of the newer entries in the series.
It demanded several prototypes, a lot of iterations and complex coordiation of a team of programmers, animators and designers in four different countries.
One of my biggest challenges making an MMORPG with a small team was to come up with a system that could create replayable content without the need to handplace everything.
The "Living World" system is the solution I came up with to deal with the creation of NPC cities and villages, dungeon populations, open world encounters and quests.
The core concepts is that Factions are generated on demand, and act as a Strategy Game AI. Having an objective at hand (For instance, building a castle), it decides through the use of a GOAP-based decision system how to do it based on what is at it's homebase's reach, which may include hiring players to gather resources or build units to scout for an Iron Mine or a forest in which to build a Lumberyard.
When such a Point of Interest (POI) is captured, it is converted into a Village (if the Faction is a Civilization) or a Lair (if the Faction is a Horde). That POI is then populated by that faction's NPCs, buildings and objects until it's heart (a boss or object) is destroyed. It also generates relevant encounters in the surrounding area.
In that way, a player may come across a web-covered corpse near a tree and immediately know giant spiders must have taken the nearby forest or mine. Nearby cities and villages may also call for help, asking for players to deal with the threat, collect spider eggs for a magic potion or find a missing pig that strayed too far from their farm.
The Living World system was designed and developed in modules so that it can be tested in isolation and enhanced on demand. In that sense, the Lair mechanic described above can work independently of the Faction AI, Quest system or the city building mechanic by randomizing new NPC Factions every time the previous one is destroyed.