Call of Duty Black Ops 7 Zombies - Totenreich

• Partake in brainstorms and giving input for revisions

• Use the Narrative Document provided by Treyarch to get the most out of the POI to and make it stand out from anything similar previously used in the Zombies game type

• Work with Audio, Tech Art, VFX, Animation, and Lighting to create a complete experience

• Create and update Design Documents to help QA test the features

• Show call any features I had designed to its upmost potential

• Save/Load using bit flags when needed to restore states for any quests I held ownership on

• Dialog for any of the features that I held ownership over.

• Partake in weekly playtests to help refine the quest lines and core feature placement as a whole

• Directed mode first pass for everything besides the boss

• Directed mode specific changes for the Robot Missile and Laser Quests while other team members moved off the project

Early on in the project I was tasked with doing paper design and first pass implementation. This was the first time I got the opportunity to sit down and just design based off a single goal of “fix the robot for the final boss”. It was a fun experience and built my confidence with just writing ideas and having to pitch them. It was personally fulfilling since as a child I used to watch many Nazi and Viking documentaries with my father when he was off work. So I got to bring up the Die Glocke that filled my mind with wonder as a child and it quickly became a killstreak that the robot would fire off called the Glocke-Drop.

• Wrote out multiple iterations of the Post-WW quest and made the first pass implementation of the 3 individual quests

• Many hours spent researching Nazi Science and Viking Documentaries to represent the scientific and mystical side of the map

• Repurpose ideas from these steps to help make the WW-Quest feel more complete and follow an internal logic we as a team tried to uphold

• Find ways to fit in Nazi history and Viking culture into the map through props, quest steps, and larger features

This is the first quest to repair the robot after collecting the Wonder Weapon. The player must use a cargo manifest to find an AA shell to then use an AA Gun on the Lighthouse. They then firing it into a broken robot head in the spawn in order to get a transmitter to install in the robot we are repairing. This leads the player to tune a nearby radio tower to get the robots missile systems back online. The values for the radio tower are hidden with blinking lights in the robots head since every zombies map needs a code to be broken.

• Hold ownership of the entire quest from first prototype to release

• Dig into feedback from parent company in reviews/showcase and with players in weekly playtests

• Work with Audio team extensively for the radio tuning step

• Obfuscation of steps like the blinking lights

• Originally we wanted to use morse code but it required a lot more work than we expected so we simplified it to the blinking lights

• When a major step cut i helped come up with a replacement step on a short deadline

• Video: https://youtu.be/t4nfWhaLiDs?t=453 (7:33 - 12:17)

This quest is the follow up to the Missile step and the part I worked on the most was the final step where the player must carry a charged battery pack from spawn to the robot on the other side of the map. Since our boss fight had so many unique mechanics we wanted to introduce them to the player in earlier quests when possible and in this quest we introduced the Ice Walls. This mechanic would block the players path after emerging. However if a player is above one as its emerging they will take damage and be knocked back.

• First pass implementation

• Held ownership of final step to deliver the Atomkraft Cell to the Bridge

• Maintain any iteration and bugs while the other TD that worked on this quest got held up working on other features/EEs

• Worked with another TD to implement Ice Walls systemically so we would not have to manage 2 versions of them for the MQ and Boss Fight separately

• Initial ideas for Irradiated Ravager and using the RCXD and a stunt jump to open the hidden lab

• Video: https://youtu.be/t4nfWhaLiDs?t=1590 (26:30 - 27:50)

Every good game needs fishing and I’m proud to say I designed and implemented it for this map! Since this took place in a fishing village it was an easy fit. However we were on a tight budget and wanted it to stay simple. So with a single button the player is able to cast out/reel-in as needed. We ended up using this as a way to replace the Dark Aether Crystals that would give “filler loot” to players while resetting every round and upgrading loot pools as game states updated.

• A creative solution using the narrative of the maps location to replace the Dark Aether Crystals that my team agreed takes away from the art direction

• Multiple rounds of iteration on how to make it a rewarding map feature that could punish players who were not attentive

• Adjust loot pool as the quest line progressed to upgrade general loot

• At rounds 15 and 30 increase the total amount of loot fished up to keep it rewarding as the rounds progressed

• Allow for forced catches for quest specific steps

• How could I pass up on the chance to allow players to catch cod fish in CoD

• Based on quest flags make it more likely to fish it up specific killstreaks that gate progression so players don't have to grind salvage or get good RNG to complete the step

• Work with Animation and my solutions to some with lerping when animation had to move onto another project

• Extensive Audio work to make sure everything synced up

• Got away with calling it “Olaf’s COD Cranker”, can’t pass up on a dumb bit that makes me laugh!

• Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cna7fJN-Ik

For this map we needed a trap that has a secondary feature to help keep the players warm during out blizzard rounds. Through much playtesting we were able to continually buff the secondary activation to have multiple little buffs that made it serve a purpose outside of just frost rounds.

• To my knowledge the first trap in CoD Zombies to have 2 functions on the same trap!

• The primary activation caused flames to fly out in 3 directions instantly killing base zombies, while dealing heavy damage to special zombies and eventually stunning them.

• The secondary activation was more passive and created a ring of fire where players inside would gain the following

  • Warmth from the blizzard rounds allowing for full use of movement

  • Temporarily gain the Napalm Burst ammo mod to allow for crowd control

  • Charge the Wonder Weapon for its Alt Fire ability

This easter egg started as an inside joke between the level designer and myself. The Sopranos is one of my favorite series and he had just wrapped up the second season while we were brainstorming potential EEs. I wanted to make something to make players laugh using a Billy Big Mouth Bass due to its absurd use in The Sopranos. Over time it evolved into a fun way to give T.E.D.D. (a long running zombies mascot of sorts) a bonus bit of content in this map, enabling him to spew out fish based puns and jokes while being a unique trap to reward players.

• A comedic Easter Egg that started as a Sopranos reference and through many iterations evolved into an instant fan favorite.

• Using a hidden Mechanical Fish and a T.E.D.D. Machine Voice Module players can craft this trap that when activated

  • The fish begins to sing a song

  • Attracts in all nearby zombies

  • After a few seconds causes an explosion Brain Rotting up to 10 zombies allowing them to kill up to 2 other zombies

• The CoD Engine does not allow for animation blending so I had to manually script out solutions to loop the 2 animations we had

• Video: https://youtu.be/V50jQOgPlCo?t=242 ( 4:02 - 5:30)