Student Project - Unreal Tournament 3: “The Haunted Keep”

“The Haunted Keep” was a custom multiplayer level I created for Unreal Tournament 3 as a graduate student in 2011.

Quick Summary: This deathmatch map was inspired by Quake III: Arena’s classic “Longest Yard.” I sought to maintain the same frantic playstyle of the original while introducing new gameplay mechanics and a vampiric castle theme. A coffin full of power-ups in the center of the map opens only when the moon is at its apex and allows the quickest player to become the “monster” of the castle!

Design Goals

King of the Hill Sniping: A of sniper towers provide a superior view of almost the entire level while allowing other players multiple ways to take swift revenge. You have to defend your vantage point from multiple angels if you want to keep it.

Make it easy for players to disappear quickly: I strove to provide players with a number of ways to seemingly disappear around corners. The Haunted Keep includes four elevators and a number of jump pads to encourage flow between the different tiers of the level. Combined with two teleporters that take players to a point on the bridge between the sniper towers, players need never feel trapped.

Exciting theme with thematic mechanic: A new techno-vampire theme transforms the ambiance of the map. For the new mechanic, I modeled a coffin in 3DS Max and placed it in the center of the map. Every two minutes, the moon rises to its apex and a ghost hand comes down to open the coffin, now full of powerups. This cycle compliments the standard deathmatch gameplay by giving players a reason to monitor their environment.

High player flow through the bottom floor: In more open deathmatch maps, high ground is typically king. To encourage player flow through the bottom tier, I enclosed the outer ring with walls to protect players from sniper fire. Strong pickups such as the Flak Cannon and coffin powerups are strong incentives to visit. Finally, turning the bottom tier into a crypt area with statues and skeletons added unique visual interest.

Maps

Overhead map

Map of Middle Tier

Map of Bottom Tier

King of the Hill Sniping: Risk vs Reward

A Superior View

To better fit with my haunted castle theme and to enhance the reward aspect of sniping in this level, the primary sniping platforms are inside of tall towers. Each offers a commanding view of the map, with line of sight to most areas outside of the basement crypt. This allows snipers to shoot at players as they run towards the power-up coffin when available. However, I took steps to prevent these strengths from becoming an unfair advantage.

Snipers Under Fire

I placed mid-range shock rifles on the floating platform just outside the sniper towers, as they allow players on the platform to engage players on the bridge and shoot explosive shock cores into the sniper towers and detonate them at odd angles, even if they lack line of sight to the snipers themselves. Finally, the side windows of the towers also allow snipers to target each other, adding another angle that players must watch as they rack up kills.

Snipers Under Assault

There are two ways that players can enter the sniper towers. Each tower has an elevator platform at the bottom to carry passengers to the top room. These emit a faint sound, so perceptive snipers may take notice and prepare for the attack. The other flow option is to first go to the floating platform and then take a jump pad, which flings players to small platforms adjacent to sniper tower windows. These are perfect for launching quick sneak attacks with close-quarters weapons such as a charged Biorifle or Impact Hammer.

Scripting

The Monstrous Coffin

The unique mechanic of this map is a “monstrous” collection of powerups inside a coffin in the middle of the map. Each time the moon reaches its zenith, a ghostly hand appears to open the coffin. The first player there gets invisibility, Berserk, and mega health at once.

In this Kismet example, I check for when a player has grabbed all three powerups in the coffin through use of cascading boolean variables. Each time a player takes one of the three powerups, its corresponding boolean variable is set from false to true. The system then checks to see if the other two variables are true, and if so, proceeds to teleport the new “master of the castle” out of the coffin. Various sound and particle effects play to alert other players of the event, and the moon resumes its circular orbit.