John Richardson
Game Designer/Environment artist
GM_Ghosthunt 3 - 2015
Gm_Ghosthunt 3 is the third and most recent map in the Ghosthunt trilogy.
It took me two years to create and is a compilation of everything I have learnt from the two previous releases.
It is the biggest and most complicated map of the three and features a puzzle, a dynamic heating system, AI ghosts and an ending event.
This map went through three iterations.
Design Principles
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Larger than previous releases
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Multiplayer friendly
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Randomised events
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Unique gameplay function or gimmick
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Replay value
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Respond to community feedback
Production
Misc. images from editor during creation.
AI Ghosts
Dynamic Heating System
The AI ghost minus the detection volume.
Release
Ghosthunt 3 was released in March 2015, after two years of on and off production.
It is proving to be just as popular as its predecessors.
Play it !
I wanted to improve on the concept of a moving ghost in my maps and decided to take a look at NPCs.
I ended up using a standard NPC (a citizen) included in the assets with Source and modified his behaviour. The result is an AI controlled 'ghost' that activley hunts players. This makes for some very interesting and unpredictable gameplay.
The NPC ghosts are expensive to maintain and I had to go through a lot of debugging and optimisation to make them work.
The ghosts have been quirky but fun to play with. They make for an exciting addition to this map.
Keeping with the theme of introducing something new for each iteration of the map, so I designed a dynamic heating system.
This system is extremely complicated and took me months to perfect. When players begin the map the temperature will begin to drop eventually killing the players. The objective is to keep the furnace fueled and activated to keep the map warm. The players must scavenge fuel hidden in the map to stay alive.
Puzzle and Escape Event
Similarly to Gm_Ghosthunt 2, I wanted to give the players some other incentive to explore the map. The players can call a rescue chopper and escape the map but they must first find two items hidden in the map. These items are randomly distributed.
