Halo Wars (XBOX RTS, 2009) Homecoming (Mission 10 of 15)
The Spirit of Fire (the Player's ship) has inadvertently triggered an ancient docking mechanism and is being drawn into the belly of an alien planet. Marines deployed to the surface will be abandoned to a gruesome fate if they aren't rescued - and fast!
Gameplay Concept Rescue the Marines before time runs out.
We already had a solid rescue mission earlier in the campaign, so this one needed a different treatment. This mission became a base-busting mission disguised as a rescue mission.
Three Marine Platoons have gotten as close to the evacuation site as they can, they are just on the edge of the map. Three enemy bases block their way to safety. Swarms of hostile bat creatures are keeping evacuation flights grounded. The player has to destroy each enemy base to rescue the Platoon trapped behind it. As a base is destroyed, a scripted rescue flight picks the Marines up and ferries them back to the Spirit.
So things didn't get stale, after the last enemy base is destroyed, massive swarms of the bat creatures converge on the area grounding all evacuation flights. The last Platoon converts to the Player's control and has to be personally commanded to the extraction point.
A timer indicates how long the Player has before the Spirit of Fire is out of reach and can no longer rescue the Marines. The timer can be extended by manipulating pylons scattered around the map (perhaps Yahtzee should have tried this?).
Alpha Platoon
attacked
A Gremlin disrupts a Forerunner pylon
Charlie Platoon
safe at last
Gameplay Implementation Using a proprietary editor (with triggers akin to Kismet), I scripted all objectives, events and mission-specific enemy AI behaviors.
My favorite piece of the script is the bit that juggles the detection and proper display of the Player's progress rescuing the Marines. Because I allowed the Player to rescue the platoons (Alpha, Bravo and Charlie) in any order, the script has to know which of these three platoons is The Last Platoon to properly display objectives and track their progress towards the extraction point. It's really not much more than swapping a bunch of variables at a specified point, but I was pleased with how seamless the effect is to the Player.
Map Layout After a few pencil sketches to get a good basic flow of space and circulation between the spaces, it went into the editor. There I identified passable/impassable areas, terrain features like cliffs, islands and channels, and elements of gameplay like bases, platoons and pylons.
And More I wrote all the dialogue and objective text.
With the Scenario Lead, I was responsible for gathering, discussing and responding to feedback as it became playable.
Trivia
This mission began life as 'the one where you get to drive a Warthog.' For just this mission we were going to chuck RTS gameplay out the window as the Player drove the landscape in a lone warthog (a throwback to the orginal Halo games). Technical hurdles and deadlines prevented this.
The Spirit of Fire (your ship) has entered the Shield World. Meanwhile, the Covenant have uncovered a fleet of ancient Dreadnought ships that will spell annihilation for the human race!
Gameplay Concept Establish ground control for UNSC forces.
The Spirit of Fire has arrived inside a Forerunner shieldworld (think hollowed out artificial planet) after chasing kidnapped scientist and crew member Dr. Anders across the galaxy. Now that they've finally found her (and the good doctor has learned what their enemies are up to), they're planning a daring campaign to thwart the enemies of humankind.
They're going to blow up the sun, of course!
But to do that, they need to establish a toehold on the planet's interior. A series of Covenant-held base locations are scattered around the map. The Player wins when all of these bases are in UNSC control.
When Banshees
attack!
A taste of their
own medicine
Scarab duel!
Gameplay Implementation Using a proprietary editor (with triggers akin to Kismet), I scripted all objectives, events and mission-specific enemy AI behaviors.
My favorite piece of the script didn't actually survive into the shipping version. Prior to the completion of the AI (which was coded and scripted by programmers), I made a rough pass at a script that identifed Areas of Interest to the enemy AI and set those areas as targets for his attack groups. It was really cool to see the enemy AI shifting his focus based on the Player's choices. Very cool, indeed. When it came online, the programmers' efforts were much more robust and tunable (and could be used throughout the campaign), but I was pretty proud of my temporary "AI" script none-the-less.
Map Layout The map went through several iterations to get the layout right. The teleporters were more prevalent initially, but proved clunky to use and technically shaky. Relatively late the bridges were added that link the lower areas of the map together.
And More I wrote all the dialogue and objective text.
With the Scenario Lead, I was responsible for gathering, discussing and responding to feedback as it became playable.
Trivia
This mission began life as 'the one where you get to get to play with Covenant toys.' The Player ransacked enemy bases and amassed a collection of Covenant units (even taking over a Covenant base). This was prior to the Spartan ability to 'jack' enemy units. It turned out that there were significant audio, art and UI challenges associated with UNSC control of Covenant buildings and units that this pretty rapidly became 'the one where you get to play with a Scarab,' which I am totally fine with. Scarabs rock.
