Software Used
Production From September 2019 - May 2020
Frog Bath?
Frog Bath is a four person free for all in which players take the role of frog that desperately want to cleanse their king. In this wacky kingdom players will traverse three unique maps, in head-to-head combat over bath items to deliver to their King.
Frog Hops!
Frogs move around the world through classic platforming and hyper frog like movement. Frogs can jump high or low to traverse their world, or if they time it right can do short quick hops that allow them to cover distance very quickly.
Frogs Have Tongues
However, despite all the hops the quickest way to move about this sparkling clean world is to use the frogs best asset, their tongue. Frog tongues allow them to whip to surface, steal items, bully other frogs and spit their bath loot. It is a versatile tool that keeps players constantly fighting and helping them from falling behind other frogs.
Bathe the King!
Overall, each game of Frog Bath is centered around his majesty the King. Despite the King demanding the frog players retrieve and bring him froggy bath items, he will move around the map to his royal courtyards. These are measures to stay clean so it is important for players to pay attention for when he does his gigantic hops around the map.
Very Awesome Team of Lafterburn Studios
Product Owner, Lead Systems and Audio Designer - Leonardo Robles-Gonzalez
Lead Level and Audio Designer - Aiden O-Conner
Producer - Rachel Bussone
Lead Programmer - Thomas Mann
Lead Artist, Environment and Prop Artist - Leanna Russell
Networking Programmer - Andrew Rimpici
VFX Artist, Animator and Character Artist - J.J. Robertson
Artist - Alex Labella
Systems Designer - Robert Price
Level Designer - Me
Producer - Ryan Murphy
Systems and Level Designer - Stephen Vowles
Programmer - Jacob Biederman
River City
From Mega Map to Quaint Venetian/Mediterranean Map
During my time in Frog Bath I was assigned to the level design team. Here we worked on what was originally going to be one big map that was twice the size of map from its original presentation. With a team of three designers we tried to tackle Mega Map.
I was in charge of creating upper level platforming for the frogs and paths between the items and the frog king. We each assigned ourselves a tier and went to work on this massive map. When all was settled and we tested it we realized there were a lot of issues with player interaction and our map was way too big.
So we gutted it when time got close to our PAX East deadline. So each of us took a section of our levels and turned one mega map to three. In terms of theme we decided to try to get strong regional influence for each map, to tie in with the Kingdom idea. Thus we created a Roman aqueduct inspired level, a traditional Northern European castle level, and a Venetian/Mediterranean based level.
I was in charge of the Venetian level. This level was a lot of fun to work with. To start I used a re-purposed building from the original map. Here I started to carve our rivers and canals to help shape the land. I created the king courtyards to be located in lighthouses to tie back to the water theme.
Over several iterations and a lot of cleaning up, I was able to use re-purposed buildings and use water ways in a way to avoid the pitfalls we had with mega map. While this map was unfortunately not as tested as the mega map due to global issues the map seems quite successful in its limited testing.
