Overload is a co-operative, 4 player game made for the Piece Pack System. The goal of this project was to create a game that lasts between 60 - 90 minutes over a 3 week project life cycle. In Overload, each player moves in a unique way, and have different abilities to move the players around them. Using a combination of both, they are tasked with getting through several randomly generated rooms that get more dangerous if the players do not complete their objectives along the way. Players must pick up their player specific orbs or risk causing the next generated room to spawn with detriments, which add a rule that changes an aspect of the way players interact with the room and each other, rarely helping and mostly hurting the players chances for survival. Once the players complete 6 main objectives, they enter the final room and sprint to the finish. Making it out of this room means a win for the team!
For this project, I was the Lead Designer of 4 members and QA Testing coordinator. I contributed by leading design meetings, writing design documents, and scheduling play test sessions.
The main challenge of this project was getting the game to fall within the 60-90 minute time limit. We first did a quick brainstorm and came up with some great second to second gameplay; the ability to move other players. We needed a way to have players be required to use it, and ended up with the detriment system. Players would be punished if they left their respective pickups behind, and collecting another player's respective pickup would net them less points. With great short and mid term goals, we still needed to fall within the time limit. Through thorough playtesting, analyzing the average rate players gathered points, we found 6 rooms to be ideal. To end the game on a climactic note, the final room was balanced to require more synergy than previous rooms.
While working on this project, valuable lessons were learned about team play, creating tension, affording communication, and keeping all players engaged through all turns of the game. During blind playtests, players often discussed moves several turns ahead which was our goal. Each player having their own abilities brought different perspectives to the discussion. Seasoned players or a team with great communication are rewarded by pulling off brilliant chains of moves to get through rooms with high efficiency.
Documentation Links:
To play the game, you can print out or obtain your own Piece Pack set and use the rules here: Overload Ruleset PDF