In this Fast Arena FPS, you play as a prisonner in hell, forced to battle for eternity to please the crowds of the Colosseum ! Wave after wave of enemies, you battle ancient warriors to the rythm of their songs. The faster and bolder you are in the Colosseum, the more the crowd will be pleased. If the crowd is satisfied they may give you sustainance for one last encore !

I lead the project's core team of 6 as well as our 2 composers for this 3 months-long project. The concept was to make a fast arena shooter that wouldn't try to do too much, but to do what it does better, 'less is more'. We also viewed the gameplay as a spectacle that must be entertained continuously, digging into similar feelings to the latin furor (the excitement of the public for death during gladiator fights) and making us heavily lean into gamefeel.The direction I gave touched on every aspect of the game.

The choice of hell and the colosseum was largely a reference to Doom and gladiator fights. However I asked for a representation of Hell that wouldn't have lava or flames, but rather dust and dirt as if dust had settled and the spectacle was the only way to light the Colosseum 'on fire' once again. The work on dust and dirt also contributed to the 'less is more' aspect, bringing a reduced color palette, almost greyscale, we could explore through textures not unlike the paintings of Pierre Soulages. The reduced color palette meant we could use colors to make the game designers' signs and feedbacks stand out more.

The game design also contributed to 'less is more' through a reduced array of mechanics, which was very regularly playtested and modified and a heavy focus on gamefeel, combat design and level design. The only way to add a mechanic was if an issue was spotted during a playtest and a 2nd playtest with the mechanic showed it solved the issue and the mechanic contributed to our direction. This lead to a streamlined development process where nothing superfluous could be added.

I also directed the 2 composers, I gave them the structure they needed to follow, artworks and references the artists gave the team of the colosseum and the enemies, gave them references. I also asked them to make 1 track per wave, contributing to the concert or spectacle aspect of the game, and asked them to do a mix of varied genres in the same way Bear McCreary's The Singularity is both very varied but also keeps a certain unity within all tracks of the album. I also asked them to keep the tempo relatively close to the rythm of the game and of the weapons. They came back with a bunch of ideas and references to both newer music mixed with older music styles which was quickly approved (eg: dubstep and baroque). The 2 composers were brought week one on the project and were regularly updated on the changes done to the project.

This game found its footing relatively quickly because of the clear directions everyone had, this allowed us to put more efforts and time into the overall game quality and further playtests.

The only programming I did on the project was the quite expansive custom C++ spawn system which allowed game designers to easily design and customize new waves, place new spawn points, assign music and wave conditions, spawn conditions, mandatory waves, change the spawned enemies, etc...