Karl Mörtberg - Portfolio

Junkyard Bash

2018
By Team Seven at Future Games, Stockholm

Junkyard Bash is a 1-4 player split-screen physics based racing game set in a sci-fi junkyard. The players take control over one of four different characters and race down a wacky scrappy racetrack while trying to bash the opponents off the map and be the first one to reach the finish line!

1 / 5

The starting line

2 / 5

Triple-split with obstacles

3 / 5

The middle part of the level

4 / 5

Three way split with the pit of death on the right

5 / 5

The snake path towards the end

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Level Design & Environment

Basic layout of the level. Sculpting the terrain with the unreal landscape tool.

Iterating on the level design continuously, constantly testing every new section.

Set dressing assisting the artists with building up the level and populating the environment with assets and lighting.

Project Manager - Set up the project and version control for the team. Held morning stand up and set up workflows for the team. Acted as a bridge between art and code keeping everyone updated on what is going on.

Platform - PC (Local Multiplayer)
Number of Players - 1 to 4
Engine - Unreal Engine 4.2
Language - Blueprints
Development Time - 2 Weeks
Team Size - 9 (4x 3D Artists, 3x Designers, 2x 2D Artists)

I was thrown into a group of eight complete strangers for two weeks and we had a blast!

We spent the first two days to get to know each other and our strengths and weaknesses, and then brainstorming ideas for what type of game we believe we could do in what would essentially be eight week days of work.

For the first week of the project I acted as the project manager and tech support setting up Unreal Engine and Version Control for the artists who never used it before. I researched and tested out ways to build our level.

We had a big issue with bumpy terrain and edges between meshes and ended up not going for meshes but instead using the Unreal landscape tool as we believed it would be much faster and we didn't have much time.

The Second week was very hectic due to only having four days of work before the Thursday deadline and most of my time was spent building segments of the level and populating it with props and foliage to make it more interesting and alive.

I also went around, making sure everyone was on track having something to work on and knew what we were doing, removing blockers. We didn't have a lot of time and I didn't want anyone to feel like they aren't doing anything productive.

It was my first racing game so I learned about designing and developing for split screen racing.

On the same point it was the first level design I have made for a racing game and I learned the hard way about how much time you really need to design a fairly short race level.

Making a racing game where every character is propelled by physical forces causes a LOT of issues with slopes and being knocked into things etc and needs a lot of work and polish that we did not have time for.

Foliage and texture painting in Unreal.

Perforce version control learning while teaching others.

Games

Junkyard Bash

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