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ROLE
Game Designer
Overview
Set in the First World War, players can choose to jump into the action as any region in the world or follow campaigns of key regions to watch historic events unfold. Make the correct Economic, Diplomatic, Domestic and Military decisions to assure the survival of your nation.
Responsibilities
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Designed and scripted a 1917 start point which contained more than 300 historical events, this became the dominant mode players chose
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Worked on the economic and combat system to support new resources and units
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Designed various new gameplay systems such as gas attacks and zeppelin flying units
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Compiled and documented an extensive amount of research about World War One to maintain the historical accuracy fans expect
Video Commentary on my Design Goals & Challenges
Design Goal
My main design goal was to create a 1917 sandbox. The players could head into this time period and play as any country they like. The economies, borders, armies and various other aspects would have to be accurate for the time. I would also have to design and script a variety of historical events that happened in 1917 and beyond. Such as the Russian Revolution, and the United States entry into the war.
While keeping the sandbox historically accurate, I had to make sure it was balanced and fun for the player.
Design Challenges
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In 1917 Russia had a much larger army than other countries, but they were very ineffective and uncoordinated. So through my various stages of designing, implementing and testing I had to make sure the Russian army wouldn't quickly overrun Europe. Since we wanted to maintain historical accuracy, I could not just make their army smaller, I had to think of different methods for balancing. This led to me coming up with a design for a morale system. The morale system made certain units more likely to flea during battle, especially when units around them started to die. This system allowed me to finely tune the Russian army, and accurate portray their disorganization during battle while keeping their number advantage.
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One of my other responsibilities was modelling the Russian Revolution within my 1917 sandbox. There was a lot of design work required when trying to model this, mostly due to all the variables that were involved. Such as ceasing land, the formation of Ukraine and Finland, and getting peace with certain countries. I also had to take into account multiple other situations the player could encounter. For example, if the player was Germany and they had taken over a sizable chunk of Russia, would the revolution still happen? Or what if Ukraine was taken over by another country? These are just a few of the many variables I had to take into account when modelling the Russian Revolution. In the end, after much testing, tweaking and feedback, I was able to correctly model the Revolution through a variety of situations, the maintained accuracy but allowed for flexibility.
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