My Role: Game Designer

As a Game Designer, I was responsible for crafting the game's weapon design, enemy progression, and level design, ensuring a smooth difficulty curve and engaging combat mechanics. My main contributions included:

• Weapon Design & Balancing: Designed a variety of player-wieldable weapons, ensuring they were balanced and complemented the game’s progression. Early-game weapons, like the infinite-ammo laser pistol (balanced with an overheat system), introduced players to combat mechanics, while high-powered weapons, like the rocket launcher, provided a rewarding late-game challenge, managing recoil and limited ammo, but rewarding the player with juicy AoE damage.

• Enemy & Weapon Progression: Aligned enemy scaling and weapon availability to create a steady sense of progression, ensuring that encounters remained challenging without overwhelming the player.

• Level Design: Designed and implemented the first level, handling everything from blockout to enemy placement, as well as interactive elements like flippable tables for cover, props, and key environmental details that encouraged tactical play.

Challenges & Solutions

As a small team with an ambitious vision, we initially over-scoped the project. To keep development realistic, we had to make strategic cuts while ensuring the core gameplay remained polished and satisfying. This meant adjusting mechanics on the fly, refining level layouts, and ensuring that every system fit within the overall game design. Since it was our first project as a team, we also had to develop stronger teamwork and workflow management, learning how to communicate effectively and prioritize key features over excessive scope.

Tools & Software Used

• GameMaker Studio 2 (Game Engine)

Outcome

Despite the challenges, 2:00 Late delivered a fun, fast-paced, and slightly hardcore gameplay experience, emphasizing tight gunplay and tactical movement within its cyberpunk world.