Project Overview
Wastelands is the first level in a solo project re-imagining Blizzard’s original StarCraft campaign using the StarCraft II Galaxy Editor. The project clearly demonstrates my ability to work with proprietary design tools and previously established intellectual properties. Working in this environment allowed me to focus solely on exploring and honing my level design skills. Though the much beloved original 1998 release served as my guide throughout development, I was free to construct each level from the ground up creating completely new and unique experiences.
As such Wastelands is not a remake but in fact, a complete adaptation of the original mission to a modern experience. For this project I adapted myself to work through the lens of Blizzard’s design philosophies, something I felt necessary as I was recreating content from one of their most beloved series. It was important for me to keep that in mind at all times, and definitely a new and challenging experience for me. Even as a personal project I absolutely felt the weight of the expectations surrounding the series on my shoulders and I repeatedly turned to StarCraft II’s Wings of Liberty campaign as a benchmark for the the kind of quality I wanted to achieve.
This project was and is an opportunity to challenge myself, and one I feel has allowed me to grow as a designer. The project has had about two weeks of development time as I write this, and the level is currently in beta version 1.2, being largely feature complete with a lot of amazing community feedback implemented and balancing completed. A final polish pass is still in the works, and work continues on custom UI libraries which will be reused in other missions. This was my first experience with the Galaxy Editor and the two week development time does include learning the editor. With pressure to create such an exceptional experience as is expected in the StarCraft universe, and the constraints of working within a predefined tool set and narrative structure, Wastelands has been a fun and fantastic chance for me to shine at what I do best; crafting tight, polished experiences.
I hope you take the time to play through the mission or watch the full video commentary below.
Community Reception
Although Wastelands is still in beta, the Legacy project overall has had fantastic community reception among fellow StarCraft II mod developers over at SC2Mapster.com. It also continues to receive a steady stream of downloads at Curse.com, where it has remained as one of the five maps featured on the popular new maps side panel. Currently the Legacy project is 2 missions strong, with the second mission in very early beta.
Using my Re-imagination
Although the level design in Wastelands is entirely new, the project is a retelling of the original StarCraft’s story, and that brings with it a lot of unique paradigms. Particularly important was keeping in mind the authorial intent of the original level, what narrative elements were being conveyed, the overall mood, and where each level fit into the overall campaign structure. Where I was really intent on focusing my attention was the gameplay. I wanted the player to feel like they were playing the original StarCraft, but I wanted the mission to play like the kind of polished experience fans have come to expect from the StarCraft II team.
Making Changes
The original StarCraft was an off-the-shelf PC RTS in the late nineties. If you had installed the game onto your hard drive, chances were you were going to play through at least a few levels before you decided whether or not the game was worth your time. There no real reason for Blizzard to create a strong hook for the player, something that has since become an accepted addition to best-practices in most media thanks to high market saturation.
If you map out the original Wastelands’ gameplay arc, it’s going to look like a 45 degree ramp declining from the get go. The most interesting moment in the level is when the game first starts, there’s a whole unknown world out there to explore. After recruiting a hero unit and killing a few enemies, settling down and building a platoon of marines seems rather boring. Because, well, it is. It’s the reverse of a normal RTS level, where building the army comes first. Teaching the player all of the game’s mechanics in one mission also creates another dilemma, you have so much to cover that you can’t really squeeze in any sort of challenge without potentially overwhelming the player or making the level longer than it ought to be.
With that in mind I knew I had to boil the level down to only a few mechanics. Seeing as the narrative is an exodus from civilization, unit control was the obvious choice over base construction. By focusing on unit control (move, attack, etc.) I was able to craft an experience that would focus on these mechanics specifically, allowing the player to develop these skills by putting them to use, not by practicing them inside of a vacuum. The mission is much better suited for adaptation to multiple difficulty levels, and features a much stronger gameplay arc.
The final decision for the project was to create an escort mission where the player would be responsible for defending an armored personnel carrier filled with civilians out of a city and through the wastelands to a small backwater town. The narrative plays out much the same as its predecessor, while the gameplay itself is completely different. By focusing on a small subset of the game’s mechanics, I also have more room for exposition in order to establish the building resentment for the confederacy that the original campaign was focused on.
An escort mission is a dangerous choice given their propensity for being frustrating affairs, but I was nothing if not motivated by the challenge. I am confident that the pacing, scripted events and all of the other pieces have come together to form an experience that hooks the player in and keeps them engaged from start to finish.