Blood Bowl: Death Zone
Blood Bowl: Death Zone is a spin-off of the popular Blood Bowl franchise, based off a game mode present in previous iterations of the game. Typically turn-based and on a grid, this game gives the premise a realtime spin and some MOBA-like elements. Players can play against AI or online via a direct peer-to-peer connection.
This project was my first taste of professional game development. I learned Unity on the fly, learning an existing codebase. I started out implementing various special attacks, but I also worked on a lot of the UI, designer tools, and animation implementation.
By far the biggest feature I worked on was the AI, which I wrote and designed based on Goal-Oriented Action Planning. Coming from a bachelors degree with a heavy focus on AI from an academic perspective, this was naturally a hugely attractive challenge to me. AI agents were able to cooperate on strategies to achieve a goal, whether attacking opponents or scoring touchdowns. I provided tools to visualize and manipulate these agents’ “thought processes” on the fly.
Everything in this game had to be written with networked multiplayer in mind: we used Unity’s legacy networking system.
Blood Bowl: Death Zone is currently available on the Steam Store.
You play by giving your team members orders, either individually or in groups. You can win either by traditional american football means, or simply by eliminating the opposing team!
I worked on a feature where you could build your own teams for use in online multiplayer games.
The ice attack visible here was one of the first things I ever got to work on. :')