Bravo Force is a PvP arena combat game with a card-based special ability system, soft-launched on iOS. Building on the success of Bravo Force: Last Stand – a single-player shooting range kind of experience – we wanted to create an evergreen PvP game with an expanded tactical scope. This particular project went through a few design iterations: starting initially with an Expendables-inspired setting of mercenary groups building and invading each others bases, we eventually stripped out the base-building metagame in favour of a quick and simple arena clash, rewriting the narrative around a disbanded unit of world heroes coming back together to prevent a global catastrophe.
My main roles on the project were to devise and balance the metagame economy, balance the stats of weapons and units in battle, define the behaviour of AI units, and design social and event systems. I also wrote a ton of narrative for the game, boxed out some early arena layouts, and supported our data analyst on the implementation and analysis of in-game metrics.
My personal highlights included:
- Creating a real magnum opus of a spreadsheet, which could intelligently balance the economy and player progression
- Deep designs for clans and ‘ambient social’ systems, which never made it into the game but were really something
- Getting my hands dirty with AI design – I had to learn a lot about utility theory based decision-making