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Sanjay Hero Design | Overwatch Fan Design #5

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April 28, 2026 Nix Du 9:56 am Topic: Overwatch Design Studies Fan design of Overwatch’s heroes, levels, events, and balancing. Expand Hero Info “Order. Is. Liberation.” Using one-of-a-kind technologies, Sanjay executes necessary evil under Vishkar and Talon, shaping the world into his vision of absolute order. RoleSupport SubroleSurvivor Health100 health + 150 shields Perk XP1700 (minor) 4500 (major) Passives Subrole: Survivor Passive️ Movement abilities start passive health generation. Reconstitution Passive️ Healing allies restore your shields and barrier. Shields restore rate: 20% of healing done Barrier restore rate: 100% of healing done Additional notes Voice Lines Shields restore rate is half as fast as the Medic subrole passive’s self-heal rate. Barrier restoring is potent, applying only to Sanjay’s ultimate. Weapon Photon Lance ️ Type Weapon (Primary Fire) Effect Type Projectile + Projectile beam Bolt projectile followed by a soft beam that trails the target struck by the bolt. Damage: 60 (bolt) + 60 over 1s (beam) Headshot: √, 2x (bolt) Fire Rate: 1 shot per 0.5s (bolt only)1 shot per 1.2s (bolt and full beam) Projectile Speed:90m/s (bolt and beam) Beam range:20m Ammo:100 Ammo cost:15 (bolt) + 10/s (beam) Reload time:1.5s Additional notes Voice Lines Tap to fire only the bolt. Hold to keep spraying the beam. Player can still spray the beam when bolt misses. The beam’s trailing is very forgiving, like Symmetra’s original weapon. Shoot only bolts for maximum DPS potential. Yes, this weapon feels like a taser 🙂 “Trace established.” On elimination: “No use in struggling.” Photon Coating ️ Type Weapon (Secondary Fire) Effect Type Projectile Four-round homing healing bursts. Healing: 14/round Fire Rate: 4 rounds in 0.4s (+0.5s recovery) Projectile Speed:40m/s Lock-On Range: 25m Ammo:32 Additional notes Voice Lines Projectile locks onto an ally within 25m, and still have a slight auto-homing beyond that range. Alternate between damage (left) and heal (right) to maximize total output. “Hard light reinforcement.” “Restoring structural integrity.” Abilities Compliance Capsule E️ Type Ability Cooldown 15 seconds Effect Type Arcing Projectile Release an exploding capsule that weakens enemies, reducing their damage dealt. Projectile Speed:30m/s Explosion Delay:0.5s Explosion Radius: 4m Explosion Damage: 5 Weaken Rate:-50% damage reduction Weaken Duration:2.5s Additional notes Voice Lines The Capsule bounces and rolls for 0.5s before detonating. Weakened enemies get audio and VFX feedback, plus a sound filter to make hits sound lighter. Weaken caps at 50%. “Neutralizing aggression.” “Pacification complete.” “Stand down!” Warp Shift️ Type Ability Cooldown 14 seconds Effect Type Movement + Area Teleport towards the direction you face and move faster. Tap again to warp nearby enemies too after a wind-up. Cast time:0.3s Warp distance:15m Speed boost:30% for 3s Enemy Warp windup:0.75s Enemy Warp selection radius:4m (around warp’s starting point) Additional notes Voice Lines Before Sanjay warps enemies, they have a total of 1.05 seconds to reach and walk out of the range. Sanjay can teleport towards any direction. Enemies warped gain no speed boost from Warp. Environmental kill is achievable, but unreliable. Plus, Sanjay might fall too. “Position realigned.” On enemy warp: “You are out of place.” On enemy warp: “Moving the problem.” Converged Amplifier Q Type Ultimate Ability Cost 2250 pts Effect Type Beam Fly up in a droplet-shaped barrier that lacks front or rear protection. Fire long-range damage or healing beam from its front. Cast Time: 0.75s Duration: 10s Barrier Health: 600 Barrier Dimensions: 10m (length)1.5m (front opening radius)2.6m (belly radius)1m (rear opening radius) Damage: 160/s Healing: 120/s Beam Range: 30m (damage/healing) Additional notes Voice Lines The barrier lacks front protection and fires a straight beam, meaning enemies can shoot back when shot by Sanjay. Sanjay can safely observe a firing enemy by moving crosshair slightly away, so the barrier blocks their shots. Unlike most flying ults, Converged amplifier doesn’t grant speed. With his passive, Sanjay can restore 100 barrier health per second when healing teammates, enabling a conservative “shield+heal” playstyle. This is not always optimal, as Sanjay does less healing than damage during Converged Amplifier. The ability ends when the barrier breaks. To enemy/self: “व्यवस्था ही मुक्ति है।” (ORDER. IS. LIBERATION.) To allies: “Chaos ends in my design.” Perks Repurposed Energy Minor Perk Trailing enemies with Photon Lance overfills your next healing burst. Propulsor Prime Minor Perk Hold Shift to propel forward during Converged Amplifier. Reverse Warp Major Perk Reverse enemy Warp’s beginning and destination. Vector Piercer Major Perk Photon Lance fires piercing bolts and beams through multiple enemies. The House (Weapon) Primary Fire Smart pistol with red dot scope. Damage: 35-17.5 Falloff range: 20-35m Rate of fire: 3 shots/s Projectile speed: hitscan Projectile radius: 0.1m Notes: The weapon’s gun play is clicky, clean and controlled, with modest audio and tactile recoil animation, but no actual recoil. “Predictable.”(On crit elimination) “You should have folded.”(On elimination) Bounty Shot – Alt Fire Take aim to release a shot that applies Bounty on hit, healing anyone who damages them. Cooldown: 6s Damage: 60-30, plus 40 over 4s Falloff Range: 30-45m Projectile speed: 125m/s Projectile radius: 0.2m Bounty uptime: 6s Bounty lifesteal rate: 25% Notes: Bounty’s healing charges Max’s ultimate. “Bleed the pot.”(To self/target) “Claim your cuts from them.”(To Allies) Joint Stake (E) Select an ally to echo healing received and partially transfer damage taken, going both ways. Cooldown: 0s Healing echo rate: 33% (generate extra) Damage transfer rate: 33% (deducted from ally) Out of sight uptime: 3s Damage transfer stops when the transfer target is below 33% health. Notes: Echoed healing charges Max’s ultimate. “Our interests aligns.” ”We share the stake now.” False Tell (Shift) Dash and release an identical decoy at the opposite direction. The decoy performs weaker attacks and heals you when it takes damage. Cooldown: 12s Dash distance: 8m Decoy release distance: 8m (opposite direction) Decoy max uptime: 5s Decoy healing rate: 50% of its damage taken Decoy damage output: -75% Notes: Decoy looks identical to Max from enemy POV, using Kiriko’s clone tech in Stadium. Decoy can’t be healed, revived, or targeted by buffs. When decoy is active, ally beams fade when attached to Max, similar to Sombra in stealth.

Mama Hong Hero Design | Overwatch Fan Design #4

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April 28, 2026 Nix Du 5:00 am Topic: Overwatch Design Studies Fan design of Overwatch’s heroes, levels, events, and balancing. Expand Hero Info “Float like feather, strike like steel.” A reputable landlord and a legendary WuXing metalbender, Mama Hong came out of retirement to protect her land against Talon-affiliated forces. Full Name洪滿山 (Hong Mun Saan) RoleTank SubroleInitiator Health450 health + 175 armor Perk XP1700 (minor) 4400 (major) Passives Subrole: Initiator Passive️ Gain a heal over time by staying airborne. Ult charge stored: up to 25% Concussion Passive️ Quick melee and Primary fire builds Concussion. Concussed enemies are vulnerable to Manslaughter. Duration: 4s Quick melee buildup: ⬤⬤○○ Direct hit buildup:⬤○○○ Splash buildup:⬤○○○ Additional notes Voice Lines Narratively, Mama Hong is a master of the metal Wuxing force. Unlike Anran’s Ignite, tanks don’t have extra consussion resistance. Mama Hong can concuss an enemy instantly with a direct hit + melee combo. Concussion don’t have any effect besides enabling Manslaughter’s detonation. Concussed enemy hears a dull metal sound and sees subtle ripples on the corners of the screen. Weapon Rising Maw ️ Type Weapon (Primary Fire) Effect Type Arcing Projectile Arcing cannonball that builds Concussion. Damage: 40 (Impact) + 20~40 (splash) Splash radius:2.5m Rate of fire:1 round per 0.85s Projectile speed:55m/s Projectile radius:0.325m Ammo:5 Reload time:1.5 seconds Additional notes Voice Lines Has a falling arc between Zarya’s alt fire and Torbjorn’s primary fire. Concussion buildup from splashing is the same regarless of how much the damage is. Elimination: “Crushed under the might.” Elimination: “Daa dou nei saang saai!” (Crushed to pieces!) Abilities Manslaughter ️ Type Ability Cooldown 8 seconds Effect Type Area + Targeted Slam weapon down to make a shockwave, imploding nearby Concussed enemies. Cast time:0.5s Impact radius: 12m Detonation Delay:0.5s Damage:10~60 (shockwave) + 80 (detonation) Launch height:4m Additional notes Voice Lines Shockwave is blocked by environment and barrier. The shockwave launches enemies lower than Wreckingball’s Piledriver, but disrupts enemy movement all the same. Manslaughter. “Reverberate!” “Baau! (Implode!)” “Break!” Toad Pounce Shift️ Type Ability Cooldown 8 seconds Effect Type Movement Leap forward. Land on a wall to take another longer leap. Damage: 1 First leap range:10m (aiming up), 12m (aiming forward) Max duration on wall:3s Second leap range:15m (aiming up), 18m (aiming forward) Additional notes Voice Lines Both leaps are loud on launch and quite on landing. Landing is light and soft, but can be combined with Manslaughter. When landing on a wall, Mama Hong can stick to the wall for up to 3s. Mama Hong can shoot during the leap, but not when on the wall. A subtle shout on jump, and a toad sound on wall-landing. On regular landing: “Featherweight!” Golden Bell E️ Type Ability Cooldown 14 seconds Effect Type – Wield a bell-shaped barrier, increasing Concussion buildup. Barrier size:3.5m (radius) + 9m (height) Barrier health: 450 Barrier duration: 3s Additional notes Voice Lines The barrier moves with Mama Hong, but doesn’t block attacks from within it, unlike Zarya’s barrier. Mama Hong builds 1 extra tick of concussion per hit during Golden Bell’s uptime. “Sanctuary!” “Gam Dzung Dzau!” (Golden Bell Shield!) On barrier broken: “Caang m’ zyu laa!” (Can’t hold it anymore!) Lion Roar Q Type Ultimate Ability Cost 2150 pts Effect Type Area + Projectile Beam Continuously pull fontal enemies towards you while inhaling projectiles, then release a linear soundblast with knockdown. Pull range: 20m, 55° cone Pull speed: 9m/s (while applying 50% slow) Inhale range: 6m, 105° cone Inhale/pull duration: 2s~4s Soundblast radius: 1.5m~3m Soundblast length: 10m~20m (length) Knockdown duration: 1s~2s Additional notes Voice Lines Can’t move, attack, or cast abilities during Lion Roar. Only affects frontal enemies/projectiles. The 50% slow applied means enemies are pulled at a speed of 6~12m/s depending on their walking direction. Their speed of escaping when not getting pulled is the normal 5.5~6m/s. Barriers block the pull. Enemies above or below are pulled as well. The cast is instant, making it a viable “parry” move. To enemies/self: “SII…” “HAAU!” To allies: “Lioooon…” “Roar!” On elimination: “M’ sai zang zaat!” (Don’t even try fighting back!” Perks Brute Force Minor Perk Imploding an enemy grants 35 overhealth. Borrowed Force Minor Perk Lion Roar releases all projectiles inhaled. Feather Steps Major Perk Toad Pounce can leap for a third time if the second leap lands on a wall too. Slaughterhouse Major Perk Elimination inside Golden Bell resets Manslaughter cooldown. The House (Weapon) Primary Fire Smart pistol with red dot scope. Damage: 35-17.5 Falloff range: 20-35m Rate of fire: 3 shots/s Projectile speed: hitscan Projectile radius: 0.1m Notes: The weapon’s gun play is clicky, clean and controlled, with modest audio and tactile recoil animation, but no actual recoil. “Predictable.”(On crit elimination) “You should have folded.”(On elimination) Bounty Shot – Alt Fire Take aim to release a shot that applies Bounty on hit, healing anyone who damages them. Cooldown: 6s Damage: 60-30, plus 40 over 4s Falloff Range: 30-45m Projectile speed: 125m/s Projectile radius: 0.2m Bounty uptime: 6s Bounty lifesteal rate: 25% Notes: Bounty’s healing charges Max’s ultimate. “Bleed the pot.”(To self/target) “Claim your cuts from them.”(To Allies) Joint Stake (E) Select an ally to echo healing received and partially transfer damage taken, going both ways. Cooldown: 0s Healing echo rate: 33% (generate extra) Damage transfer rate: 33% (deducted from ally) Out of sight uptime: 3s Damage transfer stops when the transfer target is below 33% health. Notes: Echoed healing charges Max’s ultimate. “Our interests aligns.” ”We share the stake now.” False Tell (Shift) Dash and release an identical decoy at the opposite direction. The decoy performs weaker attacks and heals you when it takes damage. Cooldown: 12s Dash distance: 8m Decoy release distance: 8m (opposite direction) Decoy max uptime: 5s Decoy healing rate: 50% of its damage taken Decoy damage output: -75% Notes: Decoy looks identical to Max from enemy POV, using Kiriko’s clone tech in Stadium. Decoy can’t be healed, revived, or targeted by buffs. When decoy is active, ally beams fade when attached to Max, similar to Sombra in stealth. Healing from decoy doesn’t

Maximilien Hero Design | Overwatch Fan Design #2

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January 27, 2026 Nix Du 4:33 am Topic: Overwatch Design Studies Fan design of Overwatch’s heroes, levels, events, and balancing. Expand Hero Info Aside from his position as Talon’s accountant, Maximillen is the figure behind many impactful events. Gambling on the edge of conflicts, he uses wealth and connections to build his own power. RoleSupport SubroleTactician Health150 health + 100 shields Perk XP1750 (minor) 4600 (major) Passives Subrole: Tactician Passive️ Store excess ultimate charge. Ult charge stored: up to 25% Backed Hand Passive️ Give your excess ultimate charge to your Ace. Ult charge given: up to 25% Additional notes Voice Lines Ace is selected with Max’s ultimate “Ace in Play”. Only grants excess charge stored via the Tactician subrole passive. Grants via ult points instead of fixed percentage. The target ally hears a surging sound on activation. Weapon Executive Wristwatch ️ Type Weapon (Primary Fire) Effect Type Hitscan Two-round burst hitscan weapon. Damage: 40 (per round) Headshot: ✓ (x2) Rate of fire:2 rounds per 0.8s Ammo:24 Reload time:1.5 seconds Additional notes Voice Lines Shot radius: 0.12m (same as Illari) Damage falloff range: 25-45m (longer than Ashe, shorter than Illari) Damage falloff rate: 50% Recovery time reduces when alternating between primary and secondary fire. Elimination: “The house always wins.” Breach Laser ️ Type Weapon (Secondary Fire) Effect Type Beam – Hitscan Three short beams with a rotating triangular spread. Damage: 135/s (45 per beam) Headshot: x Range: 13m Spread:3.6 degrees (initial) – 2 degrees (after 0.75s) Additional notes Voice Lines Beam radius: 0.1m (less than Symmetra’s minimum radius) Rotation speed: 180 degrees/s Narratively, Max uses this weapon to cut holes on doors and walls, hence the name and the spinning 3-dots pattern. Elimination: “Think twice before you get close.” Abilities Spade E️ Type Ability Cooldown 8 seconds Effect Type Melee + Projectile Slash and fling a piercing card. Place a Spade on enemies hit, allowing allies to lifesteal from them. Damage: 40 (slash) + 40 (projectile) Headshot: x Slash Range: 4m Projectile Speed:70m/s Projectile Size:0.35m Spade duration:4s Ally Lifesteal Rate:30% (15% on tanks)Stops applying when ally already has more than 40% lifesteal. Additional notes Voice Lines The slash and projectile themselves lifesteals too. The slash’s animation allows enemies at range to react to the following projectile. Enemies with Spade see a overlay effect on their screen. Healing from Spade charges Max’s ultimate ability. To self/target: “Bleed the pot.” To allies: “Claim your cuts from them.” Heart Shift️ Type Ability Cooldown – Effect Type Targeted + Area Heal an ally over time. The ally earns additional area healing on damage dealt and area speed boost on elimination. Selection Range: 25m Solo Healing: 20/s Area Healing: 20/s Area Healing Radius: 12m Area Healing Duration: 3s after dealing damage Speed Boost:30% Speed Duration: 3s afer elimination Additional notes Voice Lines The AOE healing triggers like Brigitte’s Inspire passive, unstackable and lasts for full duration even when allies leave its range. Max cannot place Heart on himself. Heart expires after losing Max’s LOS for 7 seconds. Healing from Heart charges Max’s ultimate ability. “Go earn your healings.” “Make my investment worth it.” “Go, impress me.” On elimination: “Well done.” On elimination: “Stay in motion, agent.” Ace In Play Q Type Ultimate Ability Cost 2400 pts Effect Type Targeted Place an Ace on an ally. During its uptime, the Ace carrier instantly revives on death and places a Spade on their eliminators. Enemies don’t know who carries the Ace until the they get very near. Selection Range: 25m Cast Time: 0.6s Initial Healing: 100 Ace Uptime: 7s Ace Reveal Range: 5m Ace Health On Revive:Up to 350 Additional notes Voice Lines Enemies can hear when Max ults, but can’t see the Ace icon over the ally until they’re up close. All enemies see the Ace icon from the moment when one enemy sees it. Max can give himself the Ace. This enables many mind games such as: Max let his allies play aggressively, tricking enemy backline into thinking they have the Ace, while Max keeps the Ace to survive a brutal dive. The Ace cannot revive from an environmental death. With Max’s passive, he always gives excess ult charge stored to his Ace. This can be used to quickly ready an important ally ult. Ult charged: “I am ready to deploy the Ace.” On deploy, to enemies: “An Ace is on the table. Play wise.” On deploy, to Ace/self: “Fear nothing, my Ace!” On deploy, to allies: “Ace deployed.” On revive, to enemies: “YOU MISPLAYED.” On revive, to Ace: “Now, shall we continue?” Perks Cut for Two Minor Perk Heart’s area healing increases by 50% when you are in its range. No Exceptions Minor Perk You can damage and kill your Ace. This puts a Spade on yourself too. Lethal Conduct Major Perk Your laser beam attack bounces between your Spade carriers. Contingency Major Perk Reset Spade cooldown when your Heart, Spade, or Ace carrier dies. The House (Weapon) Primary Fire Smart pistol with red dot scope. Damage: 35-17.5 Falloff range: 20-35m Rate of fire: 3 shots/s Projectile speed: hitscan Projectile radius: 0.1m Notes: The weapon’s gun play is clicky, clean and controlled, with modest audio and tactile recoil animation, but no actual recoil. “Predictable.”(On crit elimination) “You should have folded.”(On elimination) Bounty Shot – Alt Fire Take aim to release a shot that applies Bounty on hit, healing anyone who damages them. Cooldown: 6s Damage: 60-30, plus 40 over 4s Falloff Range: 30-45m Projectile speed: 125m/s Projectile radius: 0.2m Bounty uptime: 6s Bounty lifesteal rate: 25% Notes: Bounty’s healing charges Max’s ultimate. “Bleed the pot.”(To self/target) “Claim your cuts from them.”(To Allies) Joint Stake (E) Select an ally to echo healing received and partially transfer damage taken, going both ways. Cooldown: 0s Healing echo rate: 33% (generate extra) Damage transfer rate: 33% (deducted from ally) Out of sight uptime: 3s Damage transfer stops when the transfer target is below 33% health. Notes: Echoed healing charges Max’s ultimate. “Our interests aligns.” ”We share the stake

Doomfist and Vendetta Rework | Overwatch Fan Design #3

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January 13, 2026 Nix Du 1:25 am Topic: Overwatch Design Studies Fan design of Overwatch’s heroes, levels, events, and balancing. Expand Vendetta Problem Compared to her (imperfect) predecessor – DPS Doomfist, Vendetta has improved her error tolerance, poking, telegraphing, and, of course, the frustration to fight against her. However, she still has the problems below: Over reliance on snowballing Pre-fight poking harms mid-fight sustain  Busy VFX and audio Changes The two changes below gives Vendetta a unique resource management system. She needs to alternate between Projectiles and Block to maintain a balance, improving her poking ability under ranged fire and penalizing perma-blocking. When flanking/spawncamping, Vendetta also needs to decide: Should I strike with a half-full meter, or should I throw a projectile to drain it first, at the cost of being heard? Warding Stance Energy meter is now divided into 5 equal sections and refills only up to to 40% Mitigating damage now fills energy meter instead Vendetta loses Warding Stance, Projected Edge, and Onslaught for 3 seconds when energy reaches 100% Projected Edge Cost reduced from 30% to 20% (1 section) Damage reduced from 70 to 60 Palatine Fang (Weapon) Each strike’s audio signaling volume doesn’t reflect their impacts accurately enough. Normal swings now makes less sound Overhead slash now makes a wind-up sound, similar to Junker Queen’s Carnage Minor Perk “Relentless” – Removed Already over-reliant on snowballed brawling, Vendetta needs an option to deal with longer maps and slower fights. Minor Perk “Bottomless Malice” – New This perk offers the option of more range and less block when a fight begins. “Energy meter automatically refills up to 80% instead of 40%.” Major Perk “Swift Vengeance” – Removed This perk is very situational, and Vendetta has little control over how it works. Minor Perk “Gut Punch” – New Vendetta’s Quick Melee attacks can be weaved into her swings smoothly, but so far there’s little reason to do so.   “Quick Melee after Palatine Fang’s side swing deals 60 damage over 5 seconds.” This perk unlocks new combos, hitting/approaching key health thresholds: swing+melee+dash (215 total) swing+swing+melee+dash (260 total) swing+swing+melee+overhead (260 upfront, 320 total) Doomfist Problem Doomfist is a unique tank hero with high skill expression, great carry potential, and a loyal core playerbase who enjoys his mobility and versatility. As of January 2026, Doomfist has the highest tank win rate in Bronze, and steadily gets less and less win rate as ranks go up; he has become a noob stomper, one reason why DPS Doomfist was so despised in Overwatch 1. This is largely due to: Slam engagement is weak post universal health buff Disrupt playstyle is unviable due to long downtime Over-reliance on empowered punch and Power Matrix Low error tolerance compared to other dive tanks Goals Lower skill floor and raise skill ceiling Reduce frustration against empowered punch Re-enable slam engage and disrupt playstyle Introduce a reliable Power Matrix alternative Improve consistency against more heroes Changes Rocket Punch Doomfist’s empowered punch is currently his main play-maker and is frustrating to play against. Informing enemies of its threat creates an alarming expectation and reduces frustration. Empowered punch now makes distinct sounds on acquiring, casting, and hitting Empowered punch now displays a decay countdown timer Meteor Strike Doomfist’s ultimate removes himself from the battle, which works against a tank’s purpose. This QoL change gives Doomfist’s team indirect shotcalling value during ult. Inner circle indicator is now visible to allies. Movement speed boost increased from 400% to 600% under alternate camera angle (RMB). Minor perk “Survival of the fittest” – Removed The perk rewards a winning fight more than a losing one. Already a momentum-demanding tank, Doomfist needs a minor perk that offers subtle but real value in various situations, including the unfavorable ones. Major perk “Aftershock” – Moved to minor Aftershock as a major perk was hard to balance between “unfun to use” and “unfun to play against”, and performs unnecessarily well against a few heroes. On the other hand, Slam hasn’t been a good hard-engage ability since the universal health increase, for its damage is still 50.This change increases Doom’s perfect combo damage from 235 to 247.5, encouraging players to Slam precisely and consciously. Seismic Slam crits on targets within 5 meters, dealing 25% more damage and applying 25% slow for 2 seconds. Major perk Idea 1: “Successor’s Momentum” Instead of buffing his default strategy, this new perk revitalizes his alternative disruptor playstyle, encouraging players to chain abilities not for damage dump, but for better angles, advanced punches, and hybrid movements. Cancelling an ability with another one reduces both cooldowns by 20%. Idea 2: “Freeform Uppercut” Yes, I know, but hear me out.It’s very hard for a perk to compete with Power Matrix. It’s not just a CC protection, but also responsive toy to play with.Uppercut is reworked to a dodge ability instead of a killing move. It feels different and enables more movement varieties. “Press reload to punch enemies upwards, dealing 40 damage.” Cooldown: 10 seconds Damage reduced from 50 to 40 AOE range reduced from 5 to 4 meters Travel distance reduced from 10 to 8 meters Knockback distance reduced from 10 to 8 meters No longer freezes horizontal movement Now interits a part of Doomfist’s current horizontal momentum January 13, 2026 Nix Du 1:25 am Recent Posts Lastest Elementor #6315 OW2 Fan Patch 2 – Maximilien Hero Design OW2 Fan Patch 1 – Vendetta/Doomfist rework

Designing 5 Levels… To Be Played At Once. Overlapped. (GGJ2023)

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Introduction Tale of Bagua is a 4D puzzle game developed by a team of three, in which the player overlays portals to access different times in the past. Portal effects are multiplied in the overlapped area, creating a kaleidoscope of historical events. Its idea was sparked on Global Game Jam 2023 and its demo was designed from scratch in 16 hours. Level Design: Making intricated puzzles with 5 overlapping mazes Now that the core mechanics are done, how to make this “switch world, pass obstacle” trick complex and fun? As a Level Designer, these are the directions I’m going for: More switches and deeper switches. To collect the heirloom in each level, a player needs to switch multiple times. The deepest ones go across multiple levels. More walking and no sitting-still solution. The player has to explore the entirety of a new level before, on top of switching worlds, in order to get the heirloom. And these are the solutions I applied: 3 shared spaces with neighboring levels. A level should share at least 3 spaces with the previous and following levels. These 2 sets of shares spaces should avoid overlapping. No shared space with 4 levels in a row. For example, level 1-4 can’t share the same vacant space. Avoid large vacant spaces. Use long alleyways and small spots. Each level has a distinct color pallet. The deeper a level is, the simpler and more monotonic its visuals are. Level 2, the first level involving a portal, has 6 shared spaces between 2 layers. The player has to switch 3+ times. Layer 1 (2023, Present) Layer 2 (2015, Wild fire) Layer 3 (1959, Great Leap Forward)) Layer 4 (1511, Ming Dynasty) Layer 5 (2073BC, Pre-Xia Dynasty) Previous Next What went well Mechanic Design-wise, we fully achieved what we wanted to have in the game.Level Design and difficulty-wise, we created intricate puzzles that took our players over 30 minutes to complete. For a 16-hour project, it’s more than enough.Our focus on whiteboxing paid us back with an almost bugless prototype.The concept and narrative fit extremely well with the Game Jam’s theme “roots”, telling a story of a Chinese kid who uses his family heirloom “Ba Gua Mirror” to travel back in time, searching for his ancestors. What went wrong As a producer, I focused too much on playability and didn’t manage the 3D art tasks effectively enough, leading to many last-minute visual problems.As a level designer, I went all in to design the most sophisticated puzzles and didn’t care about making a tutorial. This results in the new players not knowing the basics.It’s almost impossible to see anything when the player is at the final level. It’s an actual kaleidoscope with 20+ sections. Only one of them shows level 5, and you need to peek through that tiny hole to find your way.The ending of the narrative is rushed and didn’t reveal the plot well enough. What next We want to make a whole series of games with this mechanic because of how brilliant and refreshing it is. Here’s what we will do. Mechanic Design Make the portals easier to control. More UI elements to indicate the layering. Add responsive animations. Add a fullscreen option that expands selected portals to cover the whole screen, so that you won’t be peeking through a tiny slit when you’re 5 levels deep. Add conversations and other narratively beneficial things to increase story density. Add mini puzzles to increase overall variety. Level Design Playtest multiple times to re-adjust the difficulty curve. Add a tutorial level. Make the first chapter easier, at about 15 minutes avg playing time. When everything is set, we are ready to make chapter two. Visuals Bake each level individually. Optimize assets and palettes. Make sure every part of a level is equally recognizable on first glance. Narratives Add more motives to the main character’s actions. Explain more about the heirlooms: what is a Ba Gua mirror? How is it related to Ying Yang and Chinese history? Why can it bring us back in time? Summary Tale of Bagua is a success for 16 hours of work in a 2-day game jam. We want to push the idea further by finishing other aspects. Our short-term goal: make one interesting, polished, and visually stunning chapter to pitch our game for potential investments. Game Detail Play in browser

Learning the World While Surviving: Green Hell’s Metroidvania-Style Open World and Environmental Storytelling

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1100 words | 3 minutes | Spoilers Survival games got me obsessed again lately. A potential survival game designer role urged me to revisit this genre, so I went through a selection one by one: Green Hell, Rust, SCUM and No Man’s Sky. None of them made me feel like I was on a mission. In fact, these highly-rated survival games drew my attention as a player as much as a designer. Among these 4 games, I have spent the most amount of time playing and dissecting Green Hell, an open-world hardcore Survival game for both singleplayer and multiplayer. Environmental storytelling in Metroidvania-like levels Green Hell’s canon storyline is composed of scattered pieces of memories, revealed little by little to the player behind a thick curtain of Amnesia. In the game, the player plays as explorer Jake Higgins, with a goal to find his wife Mia in the jungle. During the exploration, Jake and Mia will have frequent conversations over a Walkie Talkie; but soon the player will find everything suspicious: Jake seems to have been through the same search long time ago, and Mia’s words doesn’t make sense at all sometimes. Only at the end of the game will the player realize that Jake has gone insane because his past discoveries led to the death of millions including Mia, and was actually talking to himself the whole time. What’s unique about this narrative? It breaks down a main storyline and 3 short tales into pieces and smoothly weaved them into an open-world game play. The player will not be forced to do any specific task to recover these stories.  Aside from the storytelling, Green Hell’s Metroidvania-style map cut the map into several free-to-explore sections, with natural barriers in between that requires the discovery of a certain tool to pass through. This design prevents the player from getting spoiled before exploring the previous chapter thoroughly, further enhancing the feeling of “exploration”. Furthermore, with each tool added to the player’s backpack, the player will be able to unlock more optional points of interests and build camps in more remote locations. This mechanic gave the player a feeling of “leveling up” without an experience system nor a skill tree, keeping the difficulty and hostility of every map section around the same level. After ~50 hours in Green Hell and a handful of notes, I finally felt confident to examine its worldbuilding and narrative thoroughly. Before examining its pros and cons, let’s go over a list and a database I put together first. Jake’s illusion of Mia’s calls Jake recalls his past achievements through documents Green Hell’s playthrough, divided by sections S0 – Tutorial The player expects a two-people expedition, while learning the basics. The player now has almost no attatchment to Mia. Jake and Mia’s camp Cinematic (teleports the player into the next section) – About missing the evacuation S1- Abandoned small village The player spend most time learning to survive around a single camp, unaware of how big the world is. The player believes Mia is somewhere in the jungle. Backpack (ritual note, map) Ritual place (unlocks the stone gate) Stone gate & cinematic (unlocks the next section) – About the second visit to the jungle S2 – The cartel establishments The player realizes the others’ existence and starts to suspect Mia’s honesty. The player learns to track and move between multiple camps. Discoveries of multiple modern structures can be found here. Dock Drug factory (Finding a Jeep track leading to the abandoned Jeep) Jeep (Finding the fuel to enter the gold mine) Gold mine (Finding the grapple to access the ritual place “Lambda 2”) Wahara tribe Plane crash Ritual place “Lambda 2” (Unlocks the stone gate) Stone gate, canyon & cinematic (Unlocks the next section) – About how Mia had cancer S3 – Anaconda Island & Airstrip The player spends less time building upon repositioning multiple times.Upon Mia’s disconnection, Jake’s sanity and Mia’s intentions will be doubted, raising the player’s curiosity and concern. Anaconda island Airstrip Metal hut (Acquiring climbing gear for the deep well) Deep well (Acquiring scuba diving gear for the underwater tunnel) Underwater tunnel (Leading to the next section) S4 – Wetland & Omega camp The player needs minimal effort camping. The player learns that Jake had been here with a team, and feels guilty that Jake messed up their mission.Finding the cure solely depends on if the player thinks about the foreshadowing of catchable frogs. Omega camp Ritual place “Lambda 1” (Unlocks the stone gate) Stone gate & cinematic (Getting into the enclosed cave) – Memories about curing cancer – Memories about the spread of an unknown deadly virus Enclosed cave (Acquiring the grappel gun needed for the next section) S5 – Yabahuaca’s land The player doubts Mia’s fate upon seeing the destroyed village. Almost no time is spent camping here, as an ending can be felt approaching.The player feels strongly attached to Mia and is very concerned about her potential death. Jake’s camp (now abandoned, hinting a surprisingly long time has passed since tutorial) Yabahuaca main village Ritual place (Activates the cinematic) Cinematic (Unlocks the ending) – Mia gets the virus, heartbroken – Yabahuaca massacred by the cartel because of the virus – Jake’s expedition in Omega camp, going insane, getting amnesia – Leaving before the expedition, seeing Mia in ventilation Ending Neutral and Bad ending, depending on if the player finds the cure for the virus or not. Green Hell’s events, sequenced by chronologics or gameplay Please navigate the following database by scrolling horizontally and vertically. Change the sequencing style with the droplist above the table. The pros and cons of scattered environmental storytelling Prior to Green Hell, I experienced strong environmental storytelling in The Witcher 3 (open-world) and the Bioshock series (linear). From my point of view as a player, it has the following benefits: Accessibility. The player doesn’t have to follow a pre-arranged sequence and is free to visit them at any point. Efficiency. Environmental storytelling can be mass-produced modularly in the

Politics in Business: Port Royale’s Staggering Economic Systems

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1300 words | 3 minutes Around fall 2020, when our new Game Design professor Alexander King introduced us to the system design world, I became interested in strategy games and trading games. I’m normally not a number person, but I still did the maths to beat the game. After spending 25 hours playing Port Royale, I spent another couple of hours reviewing my gameplay and summarizing the intriguing economy systems in the game. Overview Port Royale 2 is a real-time strategy game of real historical events inspired background stories. The story happened in the Caribbean colonial island in the 17th century, and the player, being a small ship’s owner, will be doing trades and other profitable actions under this chaotic and intense political situation, in order to make as many profits as possible. There is no maximum nor minimum number of a player’s assets, hence there is no clear winning/losing state of the game. However, very similar to incremental games, with more assets the player has, more game content will be unlocked, driving the player to seek more profits. The game has an extremely complicated system, with dozens of noticable flows. Stage 1: Horizontal growth and buy-and-sell economy The game starts with most of the player activities unpermitted by the government, so the player will get familiar with the game in a rather simple system: The player travels between towns, buys cheaper items, and look for another town where the price of the item is higher. The bigger amount of one product a player buys from a town, the stock of that product in the town decreases, and the price will be increasing dramatically. The same rule applies to selling items: The more you sell to a town, the less you earn from each trade, due to the shrinking of demand. This is one of the core mechanics of the game. It’s inspired by real-life trading, and can prevent players from spamming trades repetitively. However, the stock and pricing system in each town is are not totally dependant on the player’s actions. There are AI ships, plantations, and factories in each town, generating a varying amount of stocks; there is also a population value in towns that consumes these goods. With each town having its specialties of production, the player can memorize the best locations to purchase different items, and hence figure out an optimal trading route. The more cash the player has, the more valuable products the player can buy and sell, making even more profit. The player will grow horizontally in the market, until its stock covers every type of product. Sailing around and trading is rather risk-free and easy to learn, but the productivity is very limited due to the unpredictable prices in each town, and the maximum storage on the player’s convoy. In order to make more profit, besides buying more ships from the shipyard, the player can produce its own goods by building in towns. Stage 2: Vertical growth and Produce-and-sell economy Before building in a town, the player needs to purchase permission from the authority, which will be more expensive as more permissions are bought. Besides cash, the building will also cost wood and bricks, which could be bought in as goods. After inducing labors, building a residential area, a warehouse, and a production building, the production process will start automatically. Usually, the player needs to start with a primary production estate, and then move to the secondary industry. Since each town only has certain types of buildings available to construct, the player will eventually need to expand into multiple towns, and constantly transfer goods between them. For example, Cartagena is a garment-producing town, and Santa Marta is a cotton-producing town. If the player wants to produce a large number of garments, a crossover industrial chain between the two towns is necessary. With this chain of production, the player can achieve vertical dominance in the town’s market. Just like in real life, producing one’s own goods is always more profitable than buying from other merchants. The ones being both the supplier and the retailer can always make money than either of these two. After the player has enough total assets to level up, the governor will be happy to talk to you and give you tasks, out of which some are war-related, and some are not. Normally, a player would not immediately purchase the letter of marque and start sea battling, because a large number of sailors, ships, cannons, weapons, and ammo are required in the convoy to win a battle, not to mention the disastrous result of losing one. Starting off with more peaceful tasks, such as negotiation, looking for survivors, and supplying selected towns with goods, the player can gain lots of rewards, plus the reputation needed to hire sailors. Stage 3: Battling and plundering After all the necessary gears for a sea battle are purchased by the player, it will be the time to start conquering. With permission from the letter of marque, the player is able to attack weaker convoys of enemy country’s convoys, claim their properties, and collect governmental rewards. However, the battle needs lots of experience, since the controls have made it incredibly hard to aim and dodge. Winning a sea battle is a huge boost to the player’s total assets worth, but losing a battle could also be a nightmare. The player will lose all the ships involved in the battle, which in most situations means losing most of the property. Sea battles are good ways to boost a player’s financial status. It’s also essential for future developments since enough enemy slew will give the player permission to attack and claim an enemy country’s town. In order to successfully defeat the original armies in the town, the player’s convoy needs to be very massive and well-equipped. Attacking governmental towns is almost impossible, but smaller towns are generally easier to conquer. With fewer benefits too, of course. Stage 4: Automatic profiting Claiming a town will generally take

Is Interactivity Art? An Analysis of Video Games’ Exclusive Artistic Value

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2000 words | 5 minutes Introduction As digital technology has become more and more advanced, what virtual programs can provide to the mass market of consumers has been greatly enhanced. Video games, a form of entertaining computer program that was in constant expansion of both scale and variety over the past decades, have also become more capable of initiating a hybrid, interactive experience. This hybrid experience video games bring to the player can sometimes be so delicate, that it’s considered art by many people around the world. Being both an art student and a game designer, the researcher is always interested in investigating such a polarizing topic. However, in this essay, the focus is not on the artistic value of video games — which has been done by many others long before. Instead, the researcher will analyze the art of systems in video games. After field researching various genres of video games, the researcher aims to prove that interactivity in video games can be artistic, and can differentiate video games from any other forms of art. This essay’s main focus will be on making connections between video games, responsive systems, interactivity, and art. Video games and art To get through the connections between the four factors addressed above, I will first analyze the relationship between video games and traditional art forms. Despite being a well-discussed topic, it is still worth mentioning because it’s an essential part of my thesis statement. Just like how literature, music photography, and theater art are integrated into the art of filmmaking, video games can contain many different art forms. Thanks to the flexibility of digital media, almost every art form in existence can be merged into a video game. Universally speaking, most video games employ the same principles as traditional canvas arts: perspective, form, value, and more, to create a window into an imaginative world[1]. Depending on the media and genre, a video game can be composed with multiple forms of art, including the ones that are thought to only exist in real life. For example, in the platformer game Limbo, the story is delivered without the characters saying a line[2]. Although animated digitally, the scenes and gestures truly show the artists’ mastery of theater arts. Only combining several other art forms can certainly make a computer program artistic, but is not enough to make a new type of art. Take film making as an example again — movies were once considered a “series of photography” in its early stage[3], but later became an important art medium thanks to the technique of montage. Digital media, while able to joining all traditional art forms together, needs a unique core technique enough to define itself as an independent form of art. This means that the technique should be capable to give a non-art digital program artistic value without relying heavily on certain other art styles. From my understanding of game design and art, this core element is the design of interactive systems. Video games and interactivity Until this day, people still haven’t come to an agreement on what the first video game is. There are several candidates, including Tennis for Two[4], OXO[5], and Spacewar![6]. However, these programs all share a similarity: they are all interactive. At least one method of input is required to exist in the program since the very start of video game history. Unlike radios and TVs, instead of using the input to switch between multiple streams of content, video games respond to an input by directly changing the content itself, no matter if the change is displayed, broadcasted, or stored in the database. It was this kind of immediate and preservable feedback that made video games “interactive”. However, to make an interactive computer program into a video game, a designer also has to meet the other fundamental factors of game design: Goals, rules, problem-solving, entertainment, etc.[7] Just like a board game needs its rules to be executed when being played, a video game also needs the program to gather all the inputs and logically organize them to be playable. Therefore, in a video game, there are not only singular immediate interactions but also complex, systemic interactivity. Spacewar! OXO Tennis For Two Previous Next But what is complex and systemic interactivity? Complex systems are systems that do more than the sum of each part of them, and they are everywhere in our daily lives[8]. In fact, we rely on complex systems to live. We live under the laws of physics, the earth’s ecosystem, our nation’s constitution, and many more systems that give feedback to our actions. Our living quality is optimized by complex systems too, such as vehicles, artificial chemicals, electronics, and the main topic of this paper — video games. Viewing from the most fundamental aspect, most complex systems in a video game can be explained with programming languages and electronic routings, but they don’t represent systemic interactivity. The ones on the user’s end do, such as inventory, messaging, and battling. These systems are closer to people’s common sense, hence are easier to interact with. All of these systems are composed of individual objects’ properties and behaviors, as well as their relationships with other objects in the scene.[9] By observing these patterns, the player gets to understand the complex systems under the game’s surface, and ultimately develop their own tactics and strategies of playing.[10] Along the way, the player will also get familiar with the aesthetics and the narrations of the game. A summarization of development and playing process of a video game. However, these two elements are not as essential to a video game as interactivity. Input and output are an inseparable part of video games, while there are plenty of games out there that has other parts of them taken away. MUD games such as Zork[11] does not have any asset besides their logo, and vector multiplayer games such as Agar.io[12] contains minimal assets and no narration at all. A pioneer arcade game located in Brooklyn, New York called Line wobbler uses an LED