TRANSFORMERS: Heavy Metal

Responsibilities

Gameplay Programming, Client Infrastructure, Tools, Shader Development, UI Programming

Project Length

December 2018 – July 2022

Game Description

TRANSFORMERS: Heavy Metal is a geolocated mobile AR game with deckbuilding, card-based combat, large multiplayer Combiner battles, and a unique fog-of-war covered map that uses a voronoi pattern. I worked as a senior engineer on a large portion of the client-side features of the game from initial prototypes to full production. This game was in development for almost 4 years from late 2018 to mid 2022, and it brought a lot of unique technical challenges. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever needed to account for the curvature of the earth when calculating a distance!

Some of my favorite features to work on were:

Map

We experimented a lot with the map to set the game apart and address some challenges with geolocated games, such as keeping players engaged with their surroundings and dealing with sparse landmarks in rural areas. To tackle these, I developed several prototypes including audio-based navigation, and fog-of-war that encouraged exploration.

Eventually, we landed on the use of Voronoi tiles, which divided the map into regions based on the nearest landmark. This enabled players to interact with large areas, regardless of proximity. It also looked pretty cool, and was a fun opportunity for me to play with shaders and mesh generation.

Combat

I loved working on the combat in Heavy Metal, especially since I’m a fan of deckbuilders. I think its turn-based nature was a perfect fit for playing on-the-go, allowing players to look away without risking their HP. The mechanic of swiping a card left or right to either discard or play a card was simple, but felt really good. I had a really funny bug in one of the prototype versions of this mechanic where you could slide your top card to the side to see what card is next, then with your other hand you could actually play that next card.

Working with our artists to sequence animations, hit reactions, UI feedback, and FX was particularly fulfilling. The bots are what really made this game shine, and my goal was to help amplify that as much as I could.

I also made it so you could tap on the bushes and traffic cones in the background to make them wiggle 😆.

Multiplayer Raids

In addition to standard PvE combat, the game also had raids that could be played cooperatively with friends against harder enemies in a series of fights, and I worked on this feature a lot, working closely with server engineers and UI/UX designers.

Big Head Mode

This was probably my favorite secret I added to the game. Ever since I played games like Goldeneye and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, I’ve loved big head modes in games, and I just couldn’t help myself.