 What's up everybody, I'm TheMangoose. You were awesome. Today I'm sitting down with Trenadas from Project Stamina. He's their map designer. Do I have that right, Tren? Yes, map design. I do a little bit of the game mode also. Awesome, and we're gonna be talking about the various maps and modes. If you don't know, Gigantic had different maps that you played on instead of just one standard map and Project Stamina is gonna follow suit with that. And today we're gonna be talking about the importance of map variety and different modes in a game-like Project Stamina. And we've got the perfect man for it. So Tren, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, a little background, a little history and all that? Well, I don't have an extravagant background or extravagant history. Basically, I've been playing video games since I was little. I absolutely loved them. It's kind of all I did through high school. Then I basically tried out the Unity engine. The Unity engine, it's nice, not bad. Programming was not my dealio. So I switched to the Unreal Engine once that came out and I think UE3, and then that was fun. Making maps on it was fun. And then UE4 came out and that's when I really, really started liking things. Blueprints made things a lot easier, like when I need to have stuff interact with the map. Just the way it's set up is just beautiful. Other than that, I've just been learning since UE4 came out. Now, what's the, how many maps do you guys plan to have available when you do your alpha launch? And how many maps down the road is this gonna be like an ever-evolving thing? Do you plan to continue to add maps as the game progresses? Well, making maps adds a lot of, oh, what's the word, assets. So I think this is common knowledge. We wanna make sure that things are very modular. So we wanna be able to, like let's say, DFG, Dead Fin Gorge, we have a TDM map for it and we also have a main game map for it. So in turn, we wanna be able to use the TDM assets for the main game mode assets but make it a completely different setup. So we're able to make less assets but also still making custom assets for each map because you kinda wanna make things pretty and give it a uniqueness but be able to use some of the base assets to create that map so there's not much into it. But maps, how many we're gonna have is alpha, I would say one, maybe two later on. I can't really give any definitive number. We're really not big on giving definitive things unless we are 100% on it. Yeah, I can understand that. So I'd expect maybe two. Kinda go back to what you were saying there. So you're not just gonna have different maps and modes. You're gonna have different variations of maps for the different modes. Yes, the main game mode is completely different than the TDM mode. Oh, that's awesome. So what inspired that? Just the different playstyle for the different modes? Yes, because we really wanted what we said before. We really want the, not the main, but the TDM game mode to be this quick play type of deal where you go in, you get out, you have your fun, you play the game. I'm not gonna get in too many of the full on details because it's still ever evolving. But one of the base things is we want people to get in and get out fast, have that fun and not be committed to playing the game, but also be able to have enough play time in it where they can learn something. Right on. So with a lot of MOBAs, the replayability, they kinda separate themselves out with having an item system, like your various item combinations makes it fun to kinda have a fresh take on a new character, but you guys don't have an item system, you have the branching talent tree, which you could take the various talents to also freshen things up and make your character a little different than everyone else. But having different maps, that is also a great way to increase the replayability of your game. Do you envision the maps just like encouraging people to kind of play different characters and play them different ways on different maps? Yes, that is one big thing. We wanna be able to make sure like, like not just one hero is just gonna get used, like let's say R4, R4 is like the mainstay and R4 is on every map. You have to have R4. No, we don't want that. We want people to be able to play any hero that they want to play, because it's not fun when you're not being able to play that hero that you want to play because it's bad per se. I mean, there's a lot of balance stuff. Fancy would get into that itself, but we just want people to experience a game that they want to experience. What do you consider when you're creating a different map? How do you go about making it different from the others? Is it a thing of increased verticality or wider lanes or some narrow lanes for more one-on-one fights and that sort of thing? And how do you go about that? Like, what's your determination? What affects your decisions when creating a new map and making it different from the others? Well, right now I'm working on a second map. I think I've said this somewhere else. I'm not gonna get too much detail about the map because it's still under wraps, but I have a second map that I'm working on. I mean, we have Infinity, which people have seen the concept art form. We do have that gray box down and whatnot. We have DFG, and then we also have the DFG main mode, which no one except for inside the team has seen the map, the blocked out map for that. But I'm also working on a separate map right now. And it has its unique verticality to it. And it also, like in Gigantic, what we really kind of base a lot of our things in game on, there is a thing called... Cliffing, there we go. It's been a while since I've done that. But there was a thing called Cliffing. And then that makes it so you can knock people off the map. With this current map, I am making Cliffing a little bit more prominent in some areas that might not be 100%. It might change. I mean, everything is iterative. Is that the right word I'm using? I guess iterative. Well, it's gonna get changed as you go and it's gonna evolve. And those areas that have a lot of places where someone could fall off and die might actually change to a rock wall or a big old tree or statue. But when I'm making a map, I try to figure out what I want out of this map. And then I go from there, I build the focal point, which would be maybe the main area of the map or, let's say I can start off with a summing point or like when I made DFG, the TDM one, I started off with the center of the map. We wanted something where we had two different levels. And we wanted it look like the earth got carved out right there. And as you can tell, you got the bottom and then you got the top right there. Then you also have the two sides things that you can jump on. And then you can go into it by either jumping down, jumping over the two side spots. And then also there's ramps going into it. So you got sort of envisioned that open area in the middle where the kind of the lake is or pond, whatever you want to call it, that to be like kind of the main area where people will end up fighting it out. Yes, an orb sponsor, the primary orb for TDM mode. Yes. I don't know what that is. Does something we need to cut out? See, did I cut out? No, I need to cut that out of the video. No, no, no. Orbs are a thing and we've showed that. I think we've talked about it many times too, but it's part of the main game mode. And they are still evolving. We know we want it because it plays a role. I guess I shouldn't get too much into it because it might evolve. I don't want to give up people's hopes or lie to them because lying and giving up people's hopes is a very bad thing. But they play a role inside the map. And that role is to direct the fight to different areas of the map at different times during the game. So kind of like a capture point in Call of Duty or something like that. It provides a way to direct people into the fight instead of having them just mill around on the sides. Yeah, we don't want this free-for-all. I mean, yes, you're gonna have assassins or whatnot. You're gonna have people that are gonna do what the hell they want, but we're trying our best to give them something to do. And if you have that little orb that spawns, new players are gonna be like, oh, maybe I should go there, especially if they have a UI that says, hey, go grab that orb. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. So how many, the TDM is one mode and then you've got your regular mode, which I don't know what you guys are calling, but how many modes do you guys plan to have for the game? That's just the two. The main mode, which we don't have the name released yet. And then the TDM mode, which I guess we don't have a name for that. It's just team death match, I guess. We might come up with a name for that, but it's TDM for now. There's no just regular free-for-all death match? No, no, not right now. So there's something, like with most MOBAs, you have lanes and the lanes kind of direct where the fighting happens because the minions are there and the minions are how you gain experience. Now Gigantic didn't have minions or lanes or anything like that, but you still need to be able to create various avenues of approach. How do you go about doing that? Like how do you make, how do you channel, I mean, you've already given one example of it having these orbs that's gonna lead people to a certain area, but how do you create sort of, do you want just one main area for people to approach and retreat, or do you want several side areas? How are you guys gonna do that? Oh, I guess that depends on what you want out of the map and like the TDM mode, we want the main area to be usually in the center or at least the DFG TDM one. It, I think it's a little bit different with Infinity, but we still have some irritative, sorry that word just completely lost on me right now, but we still got some work to do on that, but with the Deadfin Gorge TDM mode or TDM map, a lot of the fighting we want on the two side points, life and death, and then we want the center being with the big orb spawns and we want them to fight there. And I have multiple different avenues to get to mid. We have multiple different avenues from the beginning of the game, like do you wanna get on the high ground? Do you wanna go to low ground? Do you wanna come to the side? Do you wanna flank them from behind? And all those have different lengths of time that would take to get to said point from point A to point B or what you wanted to do. It might seem a little open right now. I don't know what your thoughts on that was, but as we go along, a lot of that map, that map used to be a lot smaller and it has grown by one, I think by half right now. And I don't think it's gonna grow any bigger than that at the moment, but as we are creating maps, we're constantly taking feedback from the team, constantly taking feedback from anyone who's testing it and then evolving it from there on out. So one pathway that I might've thought that was nice might not work in general and I might have to just completely clear that out and turn it into a different pathway or raise it up and make a drop off or many other various things that we can do to it. So is it all just like, whenever you're creating these avenues, is it all like physical like walls and stuff like that? Or do you use any kind of visual cues just kind of provide some sort of perspective for the player? Like this is a different color than this. Is that sort of like any kind of optical illusions? Do you use any of that whenever you're building the map? That is very big in map making, especially in single player games. And I want to try to find a way to incorporate that into our maps, but right now where we are, I can't really as much, but like if you look at Tomb Raider games, have you played Tomb Raider? You can tell what ledges you can climb on or what ledges you can hang off of or like let's say if you can climb a wall, it looks all cracked. Right. Or vines. We want, well, at least I know I want to do something like that, but once we get more along in the process, I would expect some form of that to be incorporated into the map. I don't know exactly what it's gonna look like yet, but yes. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's a, seems like it would be a good idea. I also like the idea of having, you know, one map that has large open areas for fighting others that have more of that, you know, small ridgelines to take and small sort of tunnels to go through because it really promotes, you know, different character picks. Like different characters are gonna be just because for their ability sets are gonna be better on the big open maps and other characters will be better on the closed maps. I don't really know what I'm trying to ask here. I'm just thinking a broad comment here. I don't know if it'll be that intense. I mean, everyone's gonna have their own different playstyle and with what our game offers, they have a wide variety of playstyle that they can have. And hopefully our maps will encourage that a bit more. I'm hoping they will. We're, I mean, we're all hoping they will, but yeah, I think a lot of people will have a large, a large wide variety of ways that they can play the character or move around on the map. And it's a, I like, I don't know if you ever played, here's the storm, but that's one of the things they do is they have different maps that make different characters a little better than others and have different map objectives and such. I think it works well for, here's the storm, here's the storm, definitely isn't the most popular of MOBAs out there, but I think they hit it on the head there. And I think you guys, I'd really like that you guys are doing various maps. I think it does get a bit, as much as I loved Paragon, it was a little tedious having the same map and it wasn't always kind of nice when they changed, you know, a couple of little things up on the map, just the freshen things up. I like the Christmas or Halloween deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I like that. Well, I really like the visual update they did to the map recently, well, before it had gone downhill, but stuff like that is nice. And yes, it does get a little stale playing the same map, like League of Legends, that map makes sense and it's perfectly tuned to what they need. Like I don't know how it would be like, I guess I don't play that game at all. Sometimes, if someone invites me, I'll jump on and, you know, embarrass myself. But that game makes sense to have that single map because it is totally tuned. Every hero is tuned around that map. Right. And they don't have to balance anything else after that. There's nothing changing. They have that one point of reference for that right there. And then with multiple maps, you have multiple points of reference. So you might have a hero that might be a little bit OP on those maps and then you have to figure out how you got to tune things to either change the map, which would kind of suck, because, you know, I like maps and something that has made me change because it's broken and would kind of stink. But yeah, it's just, you have a lot more sense and then we can also make it. So this map is a little bit stronger for said type of hero or said hero because it feels a little weak. Yeah. Like Lucio, whenever you watch, really, really strong whenever you can do the cliffing, I think, is what you call it in gigantic. Yeah. Lucio booping people off. Yes. Yeah. That and how they set it up. So he has certain little paths that he can take around and whatnot. I mean, some of them probably were unintended, but I've seen some of those videos for you. They're pretty insane. I could never do that. I think that's gonna be quite the challenge for you in particular is people exploiting various points in the map in ways that you never would have thought possible. You know it's gonna happen. Oh, it's already happened. And yeah, I've had to deal with that. Yeah, you can test as much as you want, but once you get a thousand heads working together to try and break your game, it's gonna happen. Yeah, it's gonna be a long, long, long process, especially with every map coming out. I mean, yes, we want multiple maps, but I don't know how fast it's gonna be. We don't know how fast it's gonna be because we don't know how each of these heroes are gonna break the map or if the map will break them. I mean, a map shouldn't break a hero, I guess. It can though. It can. I am bald to fall down on him. See, Paragon, there's stairs that any character that had a flying animation instead of a walking animation, they would get to those stairs and just pop straight up in the air every time. It would just make you a sitting duck. I remember the fey, especially, because I loved her, but I would always have to avoid that one spot in the stairs and it's weird when you're playing a game and when some characters, you have to avoid a spot on the map as opposed to others. That was just a bug though. I mean, that was like an intended thing. Are you playing? What's that? You shouldn't have to avoid a spot on a map. You shouldn't. It just kind of sucks. I mean, it means your job was not done because, I mean, yeah, that spot could be weaker, but you shouldn't have to avoid it. Or you shouldn't go ahead. Just in general, I've asked you a lot of questions about maps and modes and stuff. Just give us your perspective. Just tell me about it. Just let me know, you know, your philosophies, whatever you want to talk about as far as maps and modes go, just let me hear it. Let me have it. Modes, I won't get too deep into. It's a very important part of the game. Extremely important. It takes a lot of evolving just to get to the right balance inside that because it's got to interact with the maps. It's got to interact with the heroes. It's got to interact with them. For us, the runes and various other things, but the maps itself, it's so much fun because you're creating an environment that they are walking around in, that they are playing in. And I mean, this goes along with the game modes too. You're kind of pushing a pathway that you want to see. This is gonna be the main pathway. And it's so interesting because you put so much time and effort into that and then they end up using the other pathway and the other pathway ends up being better. So I don't know if you ever heard, you put nine monkeys in a room, 10 monkeys in a room and then give them what, 10 ways to escape. They're gonna find the 11th. No, yeah, I thought you were talking about the typewriter I think with monkeys, but no, I never heard that. Yeah, I mean, you put monkeys, if you have a monkey like 10 ways to escape, they're gonna find the 11th and 12th and 13th. It's the same with players. They're always gonna find what is better about your map. So it's just fun iterating on it because our first TDM map was actually a lot of fun. A lot of people liked it. A lot of the original tests that tested it early, early on really liked it, but it isn't what we were. It isn't what we really, really wanted. So it's just interesting. And then taking what you learned from there and then putting it into that map or taking like what I've learned with the TDM map, I put it into like the main game map. And now the second map that I'm working on maps that, I'm taking everything I learned and I'm putting it right straight into that. And like I'm already falling in love with this new one that I'm doing. I wish I could speak more on it or show you guys, but it's just so much fun. And then there's a running joke inside the tester group where I usually yell at a certain person for breaking my mask because that's what he likes to do in life. But it's just, I always find it great finding all these new bugs that I need to fix. And then hearing what they got to say about it, like does this ramp work or because sometimes like you want to slow down a player and it's really difficult because let's say you can have a ramp going up or you can have steps going up where they have to jump. And a lot of people want that quick, easy ramp, but you might want the steps where they have to jump up because it slows the player down. So instead of making it up there in like two seconds, it takes them three seconds. And that extra second actually like, you know, adds on to it. All right, it completely affects how the entire rest of the game is played out. That's interesting. Yeah, designing the map and ways to affect the way that the player plays, like intentionally making it harder to get to certain areas, I like that. Yeah, no, no, that's what we really wanted. I mean, sometimes you do need to change it because the players do get pretty upset about that. And it just feels awkward. And that goes back to one of the points that you're making earlier, making it so it was a visual cue on it. So they know at a glance, they're gonna have to jump up on that instead of, oh, it might look like steps. So I'm talking to run up to it, then they hit a wall and they're just pissed because they hit a wall and they're wasting more time or a blocking volume, I guess that works. Yeah, I like that though. No, it does make a difference, man, it does. So I think that's all the questions I had for you. Was there any final comments you wanted to make before we close it up? No, I don't think I have any final comments other than, you know, check us out because we're awesome. I mean, we have the Fancy Pants and an amazing team. And an amazing community. We hit over 22,000 people, 22,000, 2200 people recently and it is still growing, it is still growing. And hopefully we can see a bunch of you guys at PAX. Yeah, I can't wait to see some video of that. I'm sure you'll be out, you guys will take some pictures and some videos and that. Yeah, I mean, we don't have a booth there unless someone wants to like, you know, give us a large chunk of money. But no, we will definitely be there. We'll be shaking hands and, you know, trying to meet with a bunch of the community because it's extremely important to us. Community is important because it makes the game go. Right on, good to hear. Yeah, I was hoping I could go meet you guys there. PAX doesn't look like it's going to happen, but I do hope that you guys have fun. Everybody out there, if you're in the area, if you hit up PAX, make sure you hit up the project stamina team, go hang out with them, learn a little bit more about the game. And they're just, they're good people, they're good folks. I'm sure that they'd be fun to hang out with. But I think that's gonna wrap it up for today's little episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you learned a little something about the maps and modes. And be sure to check out Project Stamina. I'll have links to all their social media in the video description below. But for now, this is the man goose signing off. You guys, have a good one. A man goose. You wanna learn more about Project Stamina, check out the video on the left. If you wanna see my latest cooking episode on my other channel, The Manly Goose, check out the video on the right.