T.A.G was my first team project at VFS which was developed over a three month period focusing on quick and efficient development while maintaining a manageable feature scope.

The intent behind T.A.G was to create a easy to learn and quick to master co op game with fast pace gameplay and features that support the limited scope of our development time.

The approach to T.A.G was rapid iteration and feedback, with a limited scope and timeframe for this team project aspects like level design, faced rapid iteration by testing different arena styles quickly and efficiently. Ultimately the choice to keep a symmetrical arena while swapping in different game mechanic obstacles made for the best arena that players could learn to play quickly while making each round new and exciting with their own unique play styles.

The first challenge for T.A.G was finding a balance between the arena layout and the quick gameplay mechanics. Both asymmetrical layouts and symmetrical layouts were tested and with our rapid iteration and testing it was found that some of the layouts either had too many hitch points that players could abuse to win the game easily or not enough points of contention to keep the game balanced between both players. Ultimately a symmetrical design was selected with two different end caps on the top and bottom of the arena and the left and right side of the arena to keep the gameplay unique between the four sides but kept the players in familiar grounds to where they could stand on equal footing through each round.