SeaFeud
Game Designer
Arcade Racing Game
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Team Size: 48
Quick Summary
SeaFeud is an underwater arcade racing game where players ride on a variety of fast fish. Swap fish mid-race to dynamically change your abilities, items, and stats. With eight different characters and three different courses to select from, players can have endless fun racing the seas.
A Fun Filled Couch Underwater Racing Game!
SeaFeud was developed with an underwater theme. This was to capture UE5's rendering capabilities but also give the audience a fun new location to race through.
New Mechanic to put a Spin on Racing
In SeaFeud everyone starts off on one fish. Throughout the race, other fish are laying on the track with different abilities and stats. This allows for players to dynamically change their stats while racing.
Also, after awhile the player will return to their default fish. This incentivizes players to keep picking up other fish.
Game Pillars
1. Swapping current fish with environmental fish
2. Wavy, bouncy underwater feeling
Wacky, chaotic fast paced, goofy adorable
When creating the game I created 3 main game pillars to follow. With these game pillars as the foundation to the game, we knew where to look back to if we were ever steering off course. Coming up with these pillars helped us stay on track and know what to develop even when we were far down the line of production.
The Role as a Lead Game Designer
As the lead game designer for "SeaFeud," I helped shape the game's concept where players dynamically change their "vehicle" stats by swapping fish mid-race. I tried to envision a game that would encourage a variety of playstyles and strategic decision-making. I collaborated closely with other lead designers and development teams to ensure that every game element—from the quirky fish types to the sunken urban race tracks—was integrated into a cohesive and engaging gameplay experience, making "SeaFeud" not only fun but a testament to creative teamwork.
Constant Playtesting
Of course throughout the development of SeaFeud there were bugs everywhere. One of my roles was to playtest the game and make calls based on what I believed would be the most beneficial for the outcome of the game. Also, just to bug fix!
Systems Designing
One role I took on was the role of a Systems designer. I was tasked to balance the game between the speed of each fish, the turning speed, the drifting angle and speed, and how well each fish can handle.
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I started with getting the Default Fish "Mahi Mahi" feeling just right and as a baseline. "Not too fast but not too slow." And from there I went on to balancing the other fish, determining what characteristics each fish had over the other.
The Fish
Each fish has their own unique style of controlling. They also have each of their own abilities (besides the Mahi Mahi). Also to balance things out each fish when riding over and item pickup will get only the item pertaining to that fish. However, the Mahi Mahi gets all items to compete with the other types.
The default fish everyone starts with. Not to fast but not to slow. Decent acceleration and turning. After a certain amount of time the player's fish will return back to this fish.
The Mahi Mahi
Slow acceleration but highest top speed. Turning is also slightly difficult and same with its drift. Will attack anyone that it runs into head on.
The Swordfish
The Pufferfish
Highest acceleration and easiest turning. Its drift turn is also the best. It can produce a shield around itself that will block it from any attacks
Its speed and turning is better than the Pufferfish but has low acceleration. It can accelerate with the press of a button in a straight line producing elecetricity behind it.
The Electric Eel
Postmortem
What Went Well?
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The game came together at the end and was able to be shipped on steam!
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The art looks amazing especially underwater.
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The tracks all feel nice and unique. Each track team worked well together creating a great track to race on.
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The music development was done quickly in a short amount of time.
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What Went Wrong?
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Was working on bug fixing towards the very end so quality of life things or little juice elements weren't able to be implemented.
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Some audio tracks weren't implemented in time because of confusion of direction.
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A lot of confusion with direction with elements for the game.
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AI had issues getting stuck in certain places.
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Playtesting could have occurred much earlier.
What I learned
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I learned how to guide a 48 person term. I learned how to work as a lead and be able to create documents for everyone to understand and implement what they read.
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I learned how to communicate with leads and other teammates.
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I learned the process of systems design and how changing a small variable could change more than just that one variable.
