Ashes of Equestria

A fan project that serves as an adaptation of a popular fanfiction in the My Little Pony fandom. It is an open world fallout inspired RPG. a post-apocalyptic fantasy set 200 years after a devastating war ended civilization, a unicorn emerges from an underground bunker to find a town overrun by squabbling raider gangs.

I have been apart of the design team since 2014, a download to the current build can be found here.

Game Design

Most of my game design experience on this project is in document form. Select excerpts of documents can be found in the main Projects page. As part of the leadership of design team, I was able to successfully reorganize the team and get major progress internally done, and increased team moral and productivity.

Level Design

Ponyvale

This map serves as the first major location of the game, and the first town the player will explore. The town is quite large as it is a recognizable location from the source material so the player audience would want to see the location realized and due to a reduced scope of the project, this town was made to be the only town in the game. In the game, 3 factions of gangs fight for control of the town, as well as a fourth faction of an out-of-town group with their own agenda, the player picks a faction and helps them take over the town and eliminate their rivals. The layout of the town was inspired by establishing shots from the cartoon show the fanfic is based on, making sure buildings are located in about the place they appear to be. I used the base layout from the way the river is shaped and the basic layout to build a sort of flower look for the layout, with "pedals" that radiate from the center. sticking with some visual motifs from the cartoon show. special care was made to make sure the different gang HQs were placed in a way to make sure the player didn't run into too much trouble right off the bat by keeping most of the gangs to the edge of the river, ensuring that it would always be the players choice to enter a dangerous area. Much of the western side of the map is taken up by rolling hills. Part of the challenge of making this map was adapting two source materials, one text and the other visual, and still making a game map that would be engaging for a player to navigate. I followed a simple hierarchy to accomplish this, an order of priority that goes gameplay<script team<fic story accuracy<show accuracy. Each of these was a priority, but gameplay and game feel always take first priority when designing how the map looks. This map was created in Inkscape.

Primary Influences

The primary references used in making the map were mainly reference shots of how the town looked in the cartoon show, as recognizability was an important part of the design. Additionally, I looked at European villages in terms of layout and how close buildings are, though as the map came together, the town layout opened up more than traditional villages. I also drew from the text of the story the game is based on, making sure that the route the main character took in the story could be replicated in the map itself.

Player Paths

This is a projection I drew based on testing and seeing how other people interact with a map to sort of predict where players will go, what points should stand out to them, and the results. The way the map is set up, the player has a lot of freedom to just explore as they please, and given the ability to choose to go into danger. The player enters the town map from the southwest, from there a camp is nearby they can go to in order to get involved in one of the faction quests. The player could also go north and explore the rolling hills that make up the western part of the map, the option of going east across the dam is there or going back into town, the northwest is a radiated zone and represents danger for the player. the player could possibly go straight into town, most of the fighting between the two factions is centered along the eastern half of the town along the river, leaving the outskirts safe to explore aside from hostile wildlife, from there the player can go deeper into town and if they get around the barricades around the town hall area they get introduced to that faction. The player could stick to the southern outskirts and go across the bridge, which lets them explore further east, head south to high level enemies, or go north which from there they can sneak their way back to the safety of the outskirts or get a straight line into town hall which leads them to a quest. The option for the player to follow the exact path of the main character of the story is also available.

Soft Barriers

The map has a few soft barriers that softly guide the player through the environment, especially on the western side. There are three snipers on the map: The clock tower, the town hall, and the treehouse library. The Clocktower sniper is lightly protected with only a few enemies around it, the sniper covers some of the far outskirts of the town, and a small hill to the east of the tower gives the player some cover to hide from it while still allowing them to safely get deeper into the town, its main purpose is to introduce snipers to the player in a way thats not as dangerous as the other snipers. The townhall sniper has a range of most of the heart of the town, but the player will have plenty of building cover to hide from them, but it keeps the player cautious on the main streets. The library sniper is the most dangerous as it's surrounded by the most open ground, forcing the player to take a more cautious and careful approach when inside the blue faction territory. There are two raider gangs that fight each other in the streets, with the park being a focal point in the struggle, the HQ area of the red faction is in townhall and that area is a place the player can get into the main quest, however, the two factions fighting keeps the town full of danger. there is a purple faction of raiders in the south that are high level enemies and that acts as a sort of soft barrier on its own. In the northwest is a radiated crater, this acts as a soft kill barrier that keeps the player inside the map bounds.

Hard Barriers

The map has mostly geographic features to keep the player within the borders of the map without resorting to invisible barriers. to the north is a cliff face that blocks the player. to the south, thick trees and cliffs and mountains block it. the southwest leads to the farm where the game starts, the east is another heavy tree barrier that blocks players. The river is also a hard barrier that controls the player's paths, as the only way to cross the river is by either crossing the bridges or across the dam.

Process

During the process of creating the map, I started with a simple outline and developed the river and the town hall area first and radiated out from there, eventually developing a measurement standard based on road size. I implemented feedback with each phase of development, showing developments to my team lead and implementing feedback as I went. The map was developed taking in feedback primarily from other design team members and the team lead, as well as implementing feedback from script team, trying to acomodate their needs while still adheringaccommodate to making a fun game world. the priority list of making the map was gameplay<script story<fic accuracy<show accuracy.

Screenshots

Below are a few shots of the map in engine, a few changes include the main hill being in the opposite corner, and craters added. the in engine map is considered a work in progress.

Clocktower

Tall landmarks can be seen in every part of the town for ease of navigation.

Townhall

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